uo- 


THE 


Narragansett  Friends' 
Meeting 

IN  THE  XVIII  CENTURY 


WITH  A  CHAPTER  ON  QUAKER  BEGINNINGS 
IN  RHODE  ISLAND 


BY 


CAROLINE  HAZARD 


BOSTON  AND  NEW  YORK 
HOUGHTON,  MIFFLIN  AND  COMPANY 

ftitocrsibc  prcssf,  Camfori&ge 
1900 


COFYRIGHT,   1899,   BY  CAROLINE  HAZARD 
ALL  RIGHTS  RESERVED 


PREFACE 


THIS  little  book  has  grown  from  a  paper 
read  before  the  Rhode  Island  Historical 
Society  in  September,  1894.  In  present- 
ing it  I  mentioned  the  name  of  my  master, 
the  late  Professor  Diman,  to  whose  inspir- 
ing teaching  and  example  I  owe  an  increas- 
ing debt  of  gratitude.  And  so  I  want  to 
write  his  name  here,  knowing  that  his  train- 
ing is  an  abiding  force  in  the  lives  of  his 
pupils. 

C.  H. 

OAKWOODS  IN  PEACE  DALE,  R.  I. 
September  25, 1899. 


CONTENTS 


Pag* 

CHAPTER  I.     QUAKER  BEGINNINGS  IN  RHODE 
ISLAND 3 

Correspondence  with  Massachusetts.  The  ar- 
rival of  the  Woodhouse  at  Newport.  Quakers 
driven  from  Massachusetts.  Cruel  laws.  Mary 
Dyer  and  her  companions.  Her  sentence  and  re- 
prieve. Her  death. 

CHAPTER  II.      THE    ESTABLISHMENT    OF    THE 
SOUTH  KINGSTOWN  MONTHLY  MEETING    ...    41 

Disturbed  conditions  in  Rhode  Island.  Visit 
of  George  Fox.  The  Greenwich  meeting.  The 
meeting  divided. 

CHAPTER  III.    THE  MEETING-HOUSES      ...    59 

The  records.  The  "Old  Meeting-house." 
The  Clerk  and  Treasurer.  Westerly  Meeting- 
houses. Matunuck  Meeting-house.  Richmond 
Meeting-house.  Repairs  and  accounts.  Youths' 
meetings. 

CHAPTER  IV.    THE  CLERKS  OF  THE  MEETING      77 

Peter  Davis.  Stephen  Hoxsie.  Peleg  Peck- 
ham.  Thomas  Hazard.  The  Overseers  and 
Queries. 

CHAPTER  V.    THE  WORK  OF  THE  MEETING     .    95 

Surrounding  churches.  Friends'  discipline. 
New  Lights.  Temperance:  Fighting.  Suing 
at  law.  Debtors.  Traveling. 


vi  CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  VI.    THE  WOMEN'S  MEETING   .    .    .117 

Clerks  of  the  Women's  meeting.  Preaching 
Friends.  Patience  Greene.  Marriages  with 
dancing  and  vain  mirth.  Marriage  in  shifts. 

CHAPTER  VII.    SLAVERY 139 

John  Woolman.  Testimony  of  Richard  Smith 
in  1757.  The  Rathbun  case.  Slavery  in  the 
Women's  meeting. 

CHAPTER  VIII.    THE  REVOLUTION 159 

Jeffrey  Watson's  diary.  Nailor  Tom's  diary. 
Sufferings  by  war.  Good  government.  Results 
of  the  meeting. 


QUAKER  BEGINNINGS  IN  RHODE 
ISLAND 


Aquidneck's  isle,  Nantucket's  lonely  shores, 
And  Indian-haunted  Narragansett  saw 
The  way-worn  travellers  round  their  camp-fire  draw, 

Or  heard  the  plashing  of  their  weary  oars. 

And  every  place  whereon  they  rested  grew 
Happier  for  pure  and  gracious  womanhood, 
And  men  whose  names  for  stainless  honor  stood, 

Founders  of  states  and  rulers  wise  and  true. 

WHITTIER. 

THE  first  mention  of  Quakers  in  the  re- 
cords of  the  Colony  of  Rhode  Island  occurs 
in  the  year  1657,  when  a  letter  arrived  from 
the  commissioners  of  the  United  Colonies 
addressed  to  the  governor  of  Rhode  Island : 
The  commiffioners  being  informed  that 
divers  Quakers  are  arrived  this  summer 
at  Rode   Ifland   and   entertained   there, 
which  may  prove  dangerous  to  the  Col- 
lonies,  thought  meet  to  manifeft  theire 
minds  to  the  Governor  there  as  follow- 
eth:  — 

GENT:  —  We  suppofe  you  have  un- 
derftood  that  the  laft  yeare  a  companie  of 
Quakers  arived  at  Bofton  vpon  noe  other 
account  than  to  difperfe  theire  pernicious 


4      NARRAGANSETT  FRIENDS*  MEETING 

opinions  had  they  not  been  prevented  by 
the  prudent  care  of  that  Government,  .  .  . 
whoe  vpon  that  occafion  commended  it  to 
the  General  Courts  of  the  United  Collon- 
ies  that  all  Quakers  Ranters  &  such  no- 
torious heretiques  might  be  prohibited 
coming  amongft  vs.1 

The  "  prudent  care  "  of  the  authorities 
of  Boston  and  the  Bay  towns  is  well  known. 
Fines,  imprisonment,  and  whipping  at  the 
cart's  tail  all  fell  within  the  limits  of  pru- 
dence ;  and,  not  content  with  care  for  their 
own  colony,  the  letter  goes  on  to  say : 

We  thinke  noe  care  too  great  to  pre- 
ferve  us  from  such  a  peft,  the  contagion 
whereof  (if  received)  within  youer  Col- 
lonie  were  dangerous,  &c,  to  be  defused 
to  the  other  by  means  of  the  intercourfe 
especially  to  the  place  of  trade  amongfl 
us  —  Wee  therefore  make  it  our  requelt 
that  you,  as  well  as  the  reft  of  the  Col- 
lonies  take  such  order  herein  that  youre 
naighbours  may  be  freed  from  that  dan- 
ger ;  that  you  remove  thofe  Quakers  that 
have  been  receaved,  and  for  the  future 
prohibite  theire  cominge  amongfl  you.2 

1  R.  I.  C.  R.,  vol.  i.  p.  374- 

2  R.  I.  C.  R.,  vol.  i.  p.  374-375- 


QUAKER  BEGINNINGS  5 

This  letter  is  dated  Boston,  September 
12,  1657,  and  signed  "Simon  Bradstreet, 
president."  Mr.  Bartlett,  the  learned  com- 
piler of  the  Rhode  Island  Colonial  Records, 
points  out  that  while  the  commissioners 
demanded  the  expulsion  of  Quakers  from 
Rhode  Island,  the  Massachusetts  govern- 
ment were  sending  Quakers  into  the  col- 
ony, as  in  the  case  of  Humphrey  Norton. 

The  Quakers  who  caused  this  concern  of 
mind  to  the  honorable  commissioners  had 
come  to  Aquidneck  from  England,  and  had 
been  kindly  received.  Indeed,  they  could 
hardly  have  found  a  place  in  the  world  of 
that  day  where  more  people,  by  inheritance 
and  tradition,  would  have  been  inclined  to 
welcome  them.  The  town  of  Newport  wass 
not  yet  twenty  years  old,  being  an  offshoot 
from  the  first  settlement  on  the  island  at 
Portsmouth.  It  was  Portsmouth  which  gave 
Mrs.  Hutchinson  an  asylum  when  her  teach- 
ing had  become  too  mystical  for  the  rigid 
theology  of  Boston.  "  With  her,"  says  Pro- 
fessor Diman,  "  religion  was  less  a  creed 
than  an  inner  experience;  to  her  enthusi- 
astic faith,  the  Holy  Ghost  seemed  actually 
to  unite  itself  with  the  soul  of  the  justified 
person."  *  Nicholas  Easton,  who  built  the 

1  Sir  Henry  Vane,  J.  L.  Diman,  Orations  and  Essays. 


6     NARRAGANSETT  FRIENDS1  MEETING 

first  house  at  Newport,  seems  to  have  shared 
her  beliefs,  though  doubtless  with  differ- 
ences, for  Rhode  Island  soon  became 
famous  for  its  divergence  of  opinion.  Ac- 
cording to  Winthrop,  he  was  "  a  man  very 
bold,  though  ignorant,"  and  much  exercised 
on  the  question  of  man's  will  and  God's 
sovereignty.  He  maintained  "  that  man 
has  no  power  or  will  of  himfelf,  but  as  he  is 
acted  upon  by  God.  Being  shown  what 
blasphemous  confequence  would  follow  here- 
vpon,  they  profeffed  to  abhor  the  confe- 
quences,  but  Hill  defended  the  proportions 
which,"  Winthrop  adds,  "  difcovered  their 
ignorance." ]  Samuel  Gorton,  also  a  mystic, 
had  been  found  even  too  mystical  for  the 
company  on  the  island,  and,  after  a  short 
and  troublous  sojourn  at  Portsmouth,  be- 
took himself  and  his  doctrines  across  the 
Bay,  where  he  founded  Warwick.  So  the 
spiritual  atmosphere  of  the  island  was  pre- 
pared for  the  arrival  of  Friends  in  1657  far 
more  than  any  of  the  other  settlements 
could  have  been. 

The  reply  of  the  colony  of  Rhode  Island 
to  the  letter  of  the  commissioners  shows  the 
curious  mixture  of  liberality  and  prejudice 

1  Arnold's  History  of  Rhode  Island,  p.  152. 


QUAKER  BEGINNINGS  7 

characteristic  of  the  founders.  Benedict 
Arnold  was  president  of  the  colony,  and  he, 
with  William  Baulston,  Randall  Houlden, 
as  he  writes  his  name,  Arthur  Fenner  and 
William  Field,  sign  the  very  interesting 
letter  which  was  sent  in  reply,  dated  Octo- 
ber 13,  1657:  — 

Our  defires  are,  they  declare,  in  all 
things  poffible,  to  purfue  after  and  keep 
fayre  and  loveinge  correfpondence  and 
entercourfe  with  all  the  collonys,  and  with 
all  our  countrymen  in  New  England,  .  .  . 
by  giving  juftice  to  any  that  demand  it 
among  us,  and  by  returning  fuch  as  make 
efcape  from  you,  or  from  other  colonys, 
being  fuch  as  fly  from  the  hands  of  juf- 
tice  for  matters  of  crime  done  or 
committed  amongft  you,  &c.  And  as 
concerning  thefe  quakers  (so  called)  which 
are  now  amongft  us,  we  have  no  law 
among  us  whereby  to  punifh  any  for  only 
declaring  by  words,  &c,  theire  mindes  and 
underftandings  concerning  the  things 
and  ways  of  God  as  to  falvation  and  an 
eternal  condition. 

Here  we  have  a  distinct  declaration  of 
the  limits  of  the  civil  power,  a  declaration 
as  far  in  advance  of  the  times  as  Roger 


8     NARRAGANSETT  FRIEND?  MEETING 

Williams  himself,  and  breathing  his  spirit, 
if  not  actually  inspired  by  him.  And  yet, 
immediately  following  this  noble  sentence, 
the  letter  continues  in  the  spirit  of  its  own 
day :  — 

And,  moreover,  we  find  that  in  thofe 
places  where  thefe  people  aforefaid  in  this 
coloney  are  moil  of  all  suffered  to  declare 
themfelves  freely,  and  are  only  oppofed 
by  arguments  in  difcourfe,  there  they  leaft 
of  all  defire  to  come,  and  we  are  informed 
that  they  begin  to  loath  this  place,  for 
that  they  are  not  oppofed  by  the  civill 
authority,  but  with  all  patience  and  meek- 
nefs  are  suffered  to  fay  over  their  pre- 
tended revelations  and  admonitions,  nor 
are  they  like  or  able  to  gain  many  more 
to  their  way  .  .  .  and  yet  we  conceive 
that  their  doctrines  tend  to  very  abfolute 
cutting  downe  and  overturninge  religious 
and  civill  government  among  men  if  gen- 
erally received. 

This  letter  was  addressed  "  to  the  much 
honoured  the  General  Court  sitting  at  Bos- 
ton for  the  Collony  of  Maffachusetts." 1 
Thus,  while  agreeing  with  the  Massachu- 
setts authorities  as  to  the  evil  influence  of 
1 R.  i.  c.  R.,  vol.  i.  p.  378. 


QUAKER  BEGINNINGS  9 

the  Quakers,  the  Rhode  Island  men  held 
fast  to  their  principle  of  religious  liberty. 
Six  months  later  the  question  was  taken  up 
by  the  general  assembly  sitting  at  Ports- 
mouth, and  a  letter  was  sent  "  To  the  much 
honored  John  Endicott,  Governor  of  the 
Massachusetts,"  which  is  even  more  explicit. 
Quakers,  this  letter  declares,  "  are  generally 
conceived  pernicious,  either  intentionally, 
or  at  least  wise  in  efect,  even  to  the  cor- 
ruptinge  of  good  manners  and  difturbinge 
the  common  peace  and  focieties  of  the 
places  where  they  arife  or  refort  unto,"  etc. 

"  Now,  whereas  freedom  of  different  con- 
fciences,  to  be  protected  from  inforcements 
was  the  principle  ground  of  our  Charter 
both  with  respect  to  our  humble  fute  for 
it,  as  alfo  to  the  true  intent  of  the  Honor- 
able and  renowned  parleiment  of  England 
in  grantinge  of  the  same  to  us ;  which  free- 
dom we  still  prize  as  the  greatefl  hapiness 
that  men  can  pofefs  in  this  world : 

"  Therefore  we  shall  for  the  prefervation 
of  our  civill  peace  and  order  the  more  feri- 
ously  take  notice,"  the  letter  continues,  to 
have  Quakers  conform  in  all  civil  things, 
"  as  traynings,  watchings  and  such  other 
ingadgements,"  and  will  inquire  from  Eng- 


10     NARRAGANSETT  FRIENDS'  MEETING 

land  as  to  a  proper  course  to  pursue,  being 
informed  that  many  Quakers  are  "  suffered 
to  live  in  England,  yea,  even  in  the  heart 
of  the  nation."  John  Sandford,  clerk  of  the 
assembly,  signs  this  letter,  but  here  again 
the  spirit,  if  not  the  hand,  of  Roger  Wil- 
liams is  evident.  No  one  could  prize  more 
than  he  the  "freedom  of  different  con- 
fciences,"  and  no  one  was  more  ready  to 
extend  this  "  greater!  hapiness  that  men 
can  pofefs  in  this  world  "  to  others. 

The  Quakers  who  were  the  subjects  of 
these  letters  from  Massachusetts  arrived  at 
Newport  in  the  little  ship  Woodhouse, 
Robert  Fowler  master,  during  the  summer 
of  I657.1  He  was  a  North  of  England  man, 
and,  while  building  his  ship,  became  con- 
vinced, and  had  a  divine  intimation,  that  the 
ship  he  was  then  building  should  be  de- 
voted to  the  use  of  the  society  he  had 
joined.  In  July  of  the  previous  year, 
(1656),  Mary  Fisher  and  Anne  Austin  "  ar- 
rived in  the  road  before  Boston  before  ever 
a  law  was  made  there  against  Quakers," 
Sewel  says,  "  and  yet  they  were  very  ill 
treated."  They  were  searched  before  they 
landed,  and  about  one  hundred  books  taken 

1  Appendix :  A  Quaker's  Sea  Journal 


QUAKER  BEGINNINGS  II 

from  their  trunks  and  chests  and  burned  by 
the  hangman.  They  were  then  committed 
to  jail  as  Quakers,  because  one  of  them  in 
speaking  to  the  deputy  governor,  Richard 
Bellingham,  said  thee  instead  of  you,  which 
he  asserted  was  proof  enough.  They  were 
stripped  and  searched  under  pretence  of 
finding  some  evidence  of  witchcraft,  and 
kept  without  light,  the  windows  being 
boarded  up  to  prevent  any  communication 
with  them.  Nor  was  any  food  provided  for 
them  till  Nicholas  Upsal  "  was  so  concerned 
about  it  (liberty  being  denied  to  send  them 
provisions)  that  he  purchased  it  of  the  jailor 
at  the  rate  of  five  shillings  a  week,  lest  they 
should  have  starved."  After  five  weeks  of 
this  treatment,  a  shipmaster  was  bound  in 
one  hundred  pounds'  bond  to  carry  them 
back  to  England^  and  the  jailor  kept  their 
beds  and  their  Bibles  for  his  fee.  Scarcely 
a  month  after  the  arrival  of  these  two  fear- 
less women,  eight  more  Friends  arrived,  and 
were  treated  in  the  same  manner,  and  sent 
back  after  eleven  weeks  in  the  Boston  jail.1 
It  was  at  this  juncture  that  Robert  Fow- 
ler came  to  London  with  his  offer  of  the 
new  ship,  and  found  five  of  the  Friends  who 

1  Sewel's  History ',  vol.  i.  pp.  210,  211. 


12     NARRAGANSETT  FRIENDS  MEETING 

had  been  sent  back  from  Boston  determined 
to  go  once  more.  Six  other  Friends  joined 
them,  and  the  little  company  made  ready 
to  sail  from  Southampton.  The  captain's 
mind  almost  failed  him,  but,  encouraged  by 
George  Fox,  he  writes :  "  I  received  the 
Lord's  servants  on  board,  who  came  with 
them,  with  a  mighty  hand  and  an  out- 
stretched arm."  Fowler  has  left  an  account 
of  this  voyage,  called  "  A  True  Relation  of 
the  Voyage  undertaken  by  me,  Robert  Fow- 
ler, with  my  small  veffel  called  the  '  Wood- 
houfe;'  but  performed  by  the  Lord,  like 
as  he  did  Noah's  Ark,  wherein  he  shut  up 
a  few  righteous  perfons,  and  landed  them 
safe  even  at  the  hill  of  Ararat."  Besides 
Fowler,  the  master,  the  crew  consisted  of 
only  two  men  and  three  boys,  and  he  de- 
clares that  they  made  none  of  the  usual 
observations,  but  waited  daily  upon  the 
Lord,  for  "  we  see  the  Lord  leading  our 
veffel  even  as  it  were  a  man  leading  a  horse 
by  the  head."  The  voyage  took  two  months, 
and  our  respect  for  Fowler's  seamanship  is 
justified  by  the  fact  that  New  Amsterdam 
was  the  first  port  they  sighted.  Here  they 
landed  five  passengers,  while  with  the  re- 
maining six  the  Woodhouse  proceeded  to 


QUAKER  BEGINNINGS  13 

Rhode  Island,  or,  as  we  should  now  say, 
Newport,  where  "  we  were  received  with 
much  joy  of  heart,"  one  of  the  Friends 
writes. 

Mary  Clark  was  one  of  these  passengers, 
who  had  left  her  husband,  a  merchant 
tailor  in  London,  with  her  children,  and 
went  to  Boston  "  to  warn  these  persecutors 
to  desist  from  their  iniquity ;  but  after  she 
had  delivered  her  message,  she  was  unmer- 
cifully rewarded  with  twenty  stripes  of  a 
whip  with  three  cords,  on  her  naked  back, 
and  detained  prisoner  about  twelve  weeks 
in  the  winter  season.  The  cords  of  these 
whips,"  Sewel  adds,  "  were  commonly  as 
thick  as  a  man's  little  finger,  having  each 
some  knots  at  the  end ;  and  the  stick  was 
sometimes  so  long  that  the  hangman  made 
use  of  both  his  hands  to  strike  the  harder." 

Christopher  Holder  and  John  Copeland, 
passengers  on  the  Woodhouse,  who  had 
been  banished  from  Boston  the  previous 
year,  also  pushed  their  way  into  the  colony. 
Holder  endeavored  to  speak  a  few  words  at 
Salem  "  after  the  priest  was  done,"  but  was 
hauled  out  of  church  by  the  hair  of  his 
head,  and  a  glove  and  handkerchief  thrust 
into  his  mouth.  From  Salem  he  was  sent 


14    NARRAGANSETT  FRIENDS'  MEETING 

to  Boston,  where  whipping  and  cruel  im- 
prisonment awaited  him. 

Thus  early  did  the  passengers  of  the 
Woodhouse  bear  testimony  against  the  ty- 
rannical laws  in  the  Massachusetts. 

Mary  Fisher,  one  of  the  two  first  Friends 
who  came,  had  an  experience  of  more  Chris- 
tian treatment  from  the  Mohammedan  sul- 
tan a  few  years  later,  when  in  1660  she 
journeyed  in  the  East,  and  at  Adrianople 
went  "  alone  into  the  camp  and  got  some- 
body to  go  to  the  tent  of  the  grand  vizier 
to  tell  him  an  English  woman  was  come 
who  had  something  to  declare  from  the 
great  God  to  the  sultan."  He  procured  an 
audience  for  her  the  next  morning,  and 
coming  to  the  camp  alone  as  before,  she 
was  received  as  became  an  ambassador. 
She  hesitated  to  speak,  "  mightily  ponder- 
ing what  she  might  say,"  when  the  sultan 
inquired  "  if  she  desired  that  any  might  go 
aside,"  and  when  she  answered  no,  "  bade 
her  speak  the  word  of  the  Lord  to  them 
and  not  to  fear,  for  they  had  good  hearts 
and  could  hear  it."  The  Turks  listened 
with  respect  till  she  had  done,  and  the  sul- 
tan said  she  had  spoken  the  truth.  He  de- 
sired her  to  stay  in  the  country,  "  saying 


QUAKER  BEGINNINGS  1 5 

that  they  could  not  but  respect  such  a  one 
as  should  take  so  much  pains  to  come  to 
them  so  far  as  from  England  with  a  mes- 
sage from  the  Lord  God."  He  offered  her 
a  guard  to  conduct  her  to  Constantinople, 
which  she  refused,  though  the  sultan  pressed 
it  upon  her,  saying  it  was  in  respect  to  her, 
for  he  would  not  she  should  come  to  the 
least  hurt  in  his  dominions.  But  she  per- 
sisted in  declining  it,  and  arrived  in  Con- 
stantinople "  without  the  least  hurt  or  scoff," 
and  returned  safe  to  England.1 

What  a  contrast  to  the  return  to  England 
from  New  England,  only  four  years  before, 
after  public  whipping  and  untold  indignities, 
and  all  manner  of  hardship  ! 

Sarah  Gibbons  and  Dorothy  Waugh,also 
of  the  Woodhouse  company,  bore  public 
testimony  in  Boston,  and  it  was  of  William 
Brand,  of  that  same  heroic  company,  that 
John  Norton  said,  when  he  lay  almost  dead 
after  repeated  and  cruel  whippings,  "  W. 
Brand  endeavored  to  beat  our  gospel  ordi- 
nances black  and  blue,  if  then  he  be  beaten 
black  and  blue  it  is  but  just  upon  him;  and 
I  will  appear  in  his  behalf  that  did  so." 
This  Norton  added  because  the  people  were 

1  Sewel's  History,  vol.  i.  p.  328. 


16    NARRAGANSETT  FRIENDS*  MEETING 

exasperated  at  this  cruelty,  and  "  caused 
such  a  cry  that  the  governor  sent  his  sur- 
geon to  the  prison  to  see  what  might  be 
done."1 

Sewel's  History,  in  which  these  things  are 
recorded,  was  written  by  a  Dutchman,  a 
learned  Quaker  of  Amsterdam,  whose  grand- 
father was  one  of  the  Englishmen  who  left 
home  for  conscience'  sake.  His  knowledge 
of  Greek,  Latin,  English,  French,  and  High 
Dutch  was  acquired  "  while  throwing  the 
shuttle  in  the  loom,  during  his  apprentice- 
ship to  a  stuff  maker."  He  wrote  a  diction- 
ary and  grammar  of  his  own  language,  and 
translated  many  treatises.  His  "  History  of 
the  Rise,  Increase  and  Progress  of  the 
Christian  People  called  Quakers  "  was  writ- 
ten in  Low  Dutch,  and  translated  by  him- 
self into  English.  The  first  English  edition 
was  published  in  1722  in  London.  "  I  do 
not  pretend  to  elegancy  in  the  English 
tongue,"  he  says,  u  for  being  a  foreigner  and 
never  having  been  in  England  but  about 
the  space  of  ten  months,  and  that  nearly 
fifty  years  ago,  it  ought  not  to  be  expected 
that  I  should  write  English  so  well  as 
Dutch,  my  native  tongue."  But  his  Eng- 

1  Sewel,  History,  vol.  i.  p.  254. 


QUAKER  BEGINNINGS  I/ 

lish  needs  little  apology.  It  is  direct,  sim- 
ple, and  forcible,  perhaps  far  better  than  if 
he  had  attempted  the  "  elegancy  "  of  his 
time.  The  documents  he  has  preserved 
are  invaluable,  and  his  own  comments  so 
apposite  that  his  work  is  the  standard  au- 
thority to-day  on  the  history  of  Friends, 
no  less  than  when  it  was  published.  Long- 
fellow studied  it  so  closely  for  his  New 
England  Tragedy  of  John  Endicott,  that 
whole  passages  are  simply  paraphrases  from 
Sewel,  as,  for  instance,  this  speech  of  Nor- 
ton's :  — 

"  Now  hear  me, 

This  William  Brand  of  yours  has  tried  to  beat 
Our  Gospel  Ordinances  black  and  blue ; 
And,  if  he  has  been  beaten  in  like  manner, 
It  is  but  justice,  and  I  will  appear 
In  his  behalf  that  did  so." 

The  zeal  of  Endicott,  and  "  priest  Nor- 
ton," as  Sewel  calls  him,  for  the  suppression 
of  heresy,  is  too  well  known  to  require  set- 
ting forth  in  this  place.  It  must  be  re- 
membered what  times  they  lived  in,  and 
the  fact  that  their  theology  practically  made 
the  world,  not  God's  world,  but  the  devil's. 
Thus  many  seriously  believed  that,  in  coming 
to  a  new  country  inhabited  by  heathen,  they 
were  come  to  the  territory  of  Satan,  and 


1 8     NARRAGANSETT  FRIENDS1  MEETING 

consequently  had  to  fight  the  powers  of 
darkness  with  every  weapon  possible.  The 
laws  of  the  colony  of  New  Plymouth  con- 
tain among  the  "  offences  capitall,"  under 
which  head  wilful  murder,  burning  of 
houses  and  ships,  with  gross  offences  against 
morality,  are  classed,  an  offence  which  is 
described  as  a  "  Solemn  Compaction  or  con- 
versing with  the  divell  by  way  of  witchcraft 
conjura£on  or  the  like."  A  community 
which  conceived  it  possible  for  persons  to 
make  this  "  Solemn  Compaction  "  could  not 
be  expected  to  judge  leniently  opinions  dif- 
fering from  their  own.  Under  the  theo- 
cratic theory  of  government,  the  civil  arm 
was  bound  to  attend  to  morals,  and  what 
was  a  more  deadly  sin  than  heresy  ?  The 
special  offences  of  the  Quakers  were  set 
forth  in  an  act  made  at  a  General  Court 
held  at  Boston  the  2oth  of  October,  1658, 
in  which  the  legislation  of  two  years  against 
the  Quakers  culminated.  Following  acts 
which  provided  for  whipping  and  the  cut- 
ting off  of  ears,  this  act  of  1658  provided  for 
the.  arrest  without  warrant  of  any  Quaker 
by  any  constable  or  selectman,  who  should 
commit  the  Quaker  to  close  jail  without 
bail,  until  the  next  court,  when  he  should 


QUAKER  BEGINNINGS  19 

be  tried,  and,  being  proved  a  Quaker,  should 
be  banished  on  pain  of  death.  A  legal  trial 
was,  by  a  law  made  in  the  same  year,  ad- 
judged to  be  a  trial  by  a  court  of  three 
magistrates  without  jury,  who  had  power  to 
hang  at  pleasure.  This  law  was  made  by 
so  small  a  majority,  only  one  vote  Sewel 
says,  that  the  magistrates  were  constrained 
to  add,  "  to  be  tried  by  special  jury."  Long- 
fellow sums  up  the  legislation  very  accu- 
rately in  "  John  Endicott  "  :  — 

"  Whereas  a  cursed  set  of  Heretics 
Has  lately  risen  commonly  called  Quakers, 
Who  take  upon  themselves  to  be  commissioned 
Immediately  from  God,  and  furthermore 
Infallibly  assisted  by  the  Spirit 
To  write  and  utter  blasphemous  opinions, 
Despising  Government  and  the  order  of  God 
In  church  and  commonwealth  and  speaking  evil 
Of  Dignities,  reproaching  and  reviling 
The  Magistrates  and  Ministers,  and  seeking 
To  turn  the  people  from  their  faith,  and  thus 
Gain  proselytes  to  their  pernicious  ways  ;  — 
This  court  considering  the  premises, 
And  to  prevent  like  mischief  which  is  wrought 
By  their  means  in  our  land,  doth  hereby  order 
That  whatsoever  master  or  commander 
Of  any  ship,  bark,  pink  or  catch  shall  bring 
To  any  roadstead,  harbor,  creek  or  cove 
Within  this  jurisdiction  any  Quakers 
Or  other  blasphemous  Heretics,  shall  pay 
Unto  the  Treasurer  of  the  Commonwealth 
One  hundred  pounds,  and  in  default  thereof 


20    NARRAGANSETT  FRIENDS'  MEETING 

Be  put  in  prison  and  continue  there 
Till  the  said  sum  be  satisfied  and  paid." 

"  If  any  one  within  this  jurisdiction 
Shall  henceforth  entertain,  or  shall  conceal 
Quakers,  or  other  blasphemous  Heretics, 
Knowing  them  so  to  be,  every  such  person 
Shall  forfeit  to  the  country  forty  shillings 
For  each  hour's  entertainment  or  concealment, 
And  shall  be  sent  to  prison,  as  aforesaid, 
Until  the  forfeiture  be  wholly  paid." 

"  And  it  is  further  ordered  and  enacted, 
If  any  Quaker,  or  Quakers,  shall  presume 
To  come  henceforth  into  this  jurisdiction, 
Every  male  Quaker  for  the  first  offence 
Shall  have  one  ear  cut  off ;  and  shall  be  kept 
At  labor  in  the  Workhouse  till  such  time 
As  he  be  sent  away  at  his  own  charge. 
And  for  the  repetition  of  the  offence 
Shall  have  his  other  ear  cut  off,  and  then 
Be  branded  in  the  palm  of  his  right  hand. 
And  every  woman  Quaker  shall  be  whipt 
Severely  in  three  towns ;  and  every  Quaker, 
Or  he  or  she,  that  shall  for  a  third  time 
Herein  again  offend,  shall  have  their  tongues 
Bored  through  with  a  hot  iron,  and  shall  be 
Sentenced  to  Banishment  on  pain  of  death." 

Nor  did  these  cruel  laws  end  here,  for 
the  magistrates  were  alive  to  the  disap- 
proval of  the  larger  minded  of  the  people, 
as  Nicholas  Upsall,  who  sent  food  to  the 
starving  Quakeresses,  found  to  his  cost.  A 
clause  was  added  for  the  special  benefit  of 
such  men. 


QUAKER  BEGINNINGS  21 

"  Every  inhabitant  of  this  Jurisdiction 
Who  shall  defend  the  horrible  opinions 
Of  Quakers,  by  denying  due  respect 
To  equals  and  superiors,  and  withdrawing 
From  Church  Assemblies,  and  thereby  approving 
The  abusive  and  destructive  practices 
Of  this  accursed  sect,  in  opposition 
To  all  the  orthodox  received  opinions 
Of  godly  men,  shall  be  forthwith  committed 
Unto  close  prison  for  one  month  ;  and  then 
Refusing  to  retract  and  to  reform 
The  opinions  as  aforesaid,  he  shall  be 
Sentenced  to  Banishment  on  pain  of  Death. 
By  the  Court.     Edward  Rawson,  Secretary." 

Nicholas  Upsall  could  not  forbear  to  pro- 
test against  the  early  laws,  for  Longfellow's 
summary  covers  two  years'  legislation,  and 
warned  the  magistrates,  not  only  of  the 
unreasonableness  of  their  proceedings,  but 
to  take  care  they  be  not  found  fighting 
against  God.  But  this  was  taken  so  ill 
that  he  was  fined,  and  imprisoned  for  not 
coming  to  church,  and  finally  banished  in 
the  winter  season. 

"  Coming  at  length  to  Rhode  Island, 
he  met  an  Indian  prince,"  Sewel  says, 
"  who  having  understood  how  he  had 
been  dealt  with,  behaved  himself  very 
kindly,  and  told  him,  if  he  would  live 
with  him,  he  would  make  him  a  warm 
house,  and  further  said,  'What  a  God 


22     NARRAGANSETT  FRIENDS'  MEETING 

have  the  English,  who  deal  so  with  one 

another  about  their  God ! ' ' 

Notwithstanding  the  severity  of  these 
laws,  or  rather  because  of  their  severity, 
Quakers  continued  to  come  to  Massachu- 
setts. When  the  seaboard  was  closely 
guarded  against  them,  they  found  entrance 
by  "  a  back  door,"  as  Edward  Rawson,  the 
Secretary  of  the  Colony,  declares  to  the 
King  and  Council  in  1661.  The  penalties 
were  proved  insufficient  "  to  restrain  their 
impudent  and  insolent  obtrusions,"  and  he 
goes  on  to  describe  the  measures  taken  as 
"  a  defence  against  their  impetuous,  frantic 
fury,"  which  "  necessitated  us  to  endeavor 
our  security."  We  have  already  seen  that 
Rhode  Island  was  the  "  back  door  "  through 
which  these  "  malignant  promoters  of  doc- 
trines directly  tending  to  subvert  both 
church  and  state  "  found  entrance  into  the 
well-guarded  colony.  The  worst  of  the  of- 
fences against  civil  government  seems  to 
have  been  the  failure  to  doff  the  hat  to  a 
magistrate.  Some  of  the  women  bore  testi- 
mony against  the  cruel  laws  by  wearing 
sackcloth,  with  ashes  on  their  heads,  or  de- 
clared the  spiritual  nakedness  of  the  rulers 
by  a  visible  exemplification.  But  in  a  time 


QUAKER  BEGINNINGS  2$ 

when  it  was  no  uncommon  thing  to  see  a 
woman,  stripped  to  the  waist,  fastened  to 
the  tail  of  a  cart,  and  whipped  in  the  centre 
of  the  town  by  the  public  hangman  by 
the  magistrates'  order,  these  voluntary  testi- 
monies are  the  less  surprising.  "  It  must 
be  admitted,"  Whittier  writes  of  these  early 
Friends,  "  that  many  of  them  manifested  a 
good  deal  of  that  wild  enthusiasm  which 
has  always  been  the  result  of  persecution, 
and  the  denial  of  the  rights  of  conscience 
and  worship." 

But  Quakers  simply  travelling  from  one 
place  to  another,  with  no  other  offence 
than  being  Quakers,  were  unsafe.  Hored 
Gardner,  who  is  described  as  an  inhabitant 
of  Newport,  came  to  Weymouth,  "  with  her 
sucking  babe,  and  a  girl  to  carry  it,"  in 
1658,  "  whence  for  being  a  Quaker  she  was 
hurried  to  Boston,  where  both  she  and  the 
girl  were  whipped  with  a  three-fold  knot. 
After  whipping,  the  woman  kneeled  down, 
and  prayed  the  Lord  to  forgive  those  per- 
secutors ;  which  so  touched  a  woman  that 
stood  by,  that  she  said,  surely  she  could 
not  have  done  this  if  it  had  not  been  by 
the  spirit  of  the  Lord." 

The  most  famous  case  of  suffering  among 


24     NARRAGANSETT  FRIENDS'  MEETING 

the  early  Friends  was  that  of  Mary  Dyer. 
Her  husband,  William  Dyre,  as  the  record 
spells  it,  was  a  man  of  importance  in  Rhode 
Island.  He  was  one  of  the  men  appointed 
to  lay  out  the  town  of  Newport,  and  from 
1640  to  1643  was  Secretary  of  the  Colony. 
He  held  the  office  of  General  Recorder 
later,  and  was  General  Attorney  in  1650. 
Mary  Dyer  was  a  woman  of  strong  charac- 
ter, great  enthusiasm,  and  excellent  under- 
standing. Sewel  gives  the  history  of  her 
courage  at  length.  She  came  to  Boston 
from  Rhode  Island  in  1657,  he  says,  not 
knowing  the  laws  which  had  been  made 
against  Quakers,  and  was  imprisoned.  Wil- 
liam Dyer,  her  husband,  upon  hearing  this, 
came  from  Rhode  Island  and  obtained  her 
release,  "becoming  bound  in  a  great  pen- 
alty not  to  lodge  her  in  any  town  of  that 
colony,  nor  permit  any  to  speak  with  her : 
an  evident  token  that  he  was  not  of  the  So- 
ciety of  Quakers  so  called,  for  otherwise  he 
would  not  have  entered  into  such  a  bond ; 
but  then  without  question  he  would  also 
have  been  clapped  up  in  prison,"  the  worthy 
Dutch  historian  adds.  Two  years  later  (in 
1659)  Mary  Dyer  was  again  in  Boston, 
when  William  Robinson,  a  merchant  of 


QUAKER  BEGINNINGS  2$ 

London,  and  Marmaduke  Stevenson,  came 
there.  Nicholas  Davis  was  also  there,  and 
after  whipping  Robinson,  who  was  a  teacher 
among  the  Quakers,  all  four  were  banished 
on  pain  of  death.  The  sentence  is  dated 
September  12,  1659,  and  it  appearing,  "by 
their  own  confession,  words,  and  actions, 
that  they  are  Quakers,"  they  are  sentenced 
"  to  depart  this  jurisdiction  on  pain  of 
death,  and  that  they  must  answer  it  at  their 
peril,  if  they  or  any  of  them  after  the  i/j-th 
of  this  present  month,  September,  are  found 
within  this  jurisdiction,  or  any  part  thereof." 
Mary  Dyer  and  Davis  accordingly  left  Bos- 
ton and  the  colony,  while  the  others  only 
went  to  Salem,  not  being  free  in  mind  to 
comply.  And  it  was  not  long  that  Mary 
Dyer  remained  away,  for  in  the  next  month 
(October)  she  returned,  and  all  three  were 
taken  into  custody.  On  the  2Oth  of  the 
month  these  three  were  brought  into  court, 
when  Endicott  made  them  an  oration,  de- 
claring that  the  court  desired  not  the  death 
of  any,  but  ending,  "  Give  ear,  and  harken 
to  your  sentence  of  death."  Robinson  had 
prepared  a  paper  expressly  declaring  that 
while  in  Rhode  Island  he  was  commanded 
of  the  Lord  to  repair  to  Boston,  and  lay 


26     NARRAGANSETT  FRIENDS'  MEETING 

down  his  life  there,  as  a  testimony  against 
the  wicked  and  unjust  laws.  This  paper 
Endicott  read,  but  refused  to  have  read 
publicly.  Stevenson  was  then  called,  and, 
seeing  how  his  companion  had  fared,  made 
no  defence.  He  was  sentenced  to  death, 
and  it  was  the  turn  of  Mary  Dyer,  "  to 
whom  Endicott  spoke  thus :  *  Mary  Dyer, 
you  shall  go  to  the  place  whence  you  came 
(to  wit  the  prison)  and  thence  to  the  place 
of  execution,  and  be  hanged  there  until 
you  are  dead.'  To  which  she  replied,  *  The 
will  of  the  Lord  be  done.'  Then  Endicott 
said,  '  Take  her  away,  Marshal.'  To  which 
she  returned,  '  Yea,  joyfully  I  go.'  And  in 
her  going  to  the  prison,  she  often  uttered 
speeches  of  praise  to  the  Lord  ;  and  being 
full  of  joy,  she  said  to  the  Marshal,  he 
might  let  her  alone,  for  she  would  go  to 
the  prison  without  him.  To  which  he  an- 
swered, '  I  believe  you,  Mrs.  Dyer ;  but  I 
must  do  what  I  am  commanded.' " 

In  prison  Mary  Dyer  wrote  a  very  re- 
markable letter,  addressed  to  the  General 
Court  in  Boston,  justifying  her  coming  to 
Boston,  as  it  was  by  the  will  of  the  Lord 
she  came.  "  I  have  no  self-ends,  the  Lord 
knoweth,"  she  writes.  Seeing  the  evil  of 


QUAKER  BEGINNINGS  2? 

their  unjust  laws,  she  entreats  the  court 
not  to  be  found  fighting  against  God,  but 
"to  repeal  all  such  laws,  that  the  Truth 
and  servants  of  the  Lord  may  have  free 
passage  among  you.  .  .  .  Seeing  the  Lord 
hath  not  hid  it  from  me,  it  lyeth  upon  me 
in  love  to  your  souls  thus  to  persuade  you. 
.  .  .  Was  ever  the  like  laws  heard  of  among 
a  people  that  confess  Christ  come  in  the 
flesh  ?  and  have  ye  no  other  weapons  to 
fight  against  spiritual  wickedness  withal,  as 
you  call  it  ?  Woe  is  me  for  you !  Of  whom 
take  ye  counsel  ?  Search  with  the  light  of 
Christ  in  you,  and  it  will  show  you  of  whom, 
as  it  hath  done  me,  and  many  more,  who 
have  been  disobedient  and  deceived,  as  now 
ye  are ;  which  light  as  ye  come  into,  and 
obeying  what  is  made  manifest  to  you 
therein,  you  will  not  repent  that  you  were 
kept  from  shedding  blood,  though  it  were 
by  a  woman."  She  likens  her  request  to 
Esther's  before  Ahasuerus,  saying  that  he 
did  not  contend  it  would  be  dishonorable 
to  revoke  his  decree.  She  appeals  to  "  the 
faithful  and  true  witness  of  God  which  is 
one  in  all  consciences.  If  they  put  this 
request  from  them,  she  continues,  the  Lord 
will  send  more  of  his  servants  to  gather 


28     NARRAGANSETT  FRIENDS  MEETING 

the  harvest ;  for  the  light  of  the  Lord  is 
surely  approaching,  even  to  many  in  and 
about  Boston,  which  is  the  bitterest  and 
darkest  professing  place  .  .  .  that  ever  I 
heard  of.  Let  the  time  past,  therefore,  suf- 
fice, for  such  a  profession  as  brings  forth 
such  fruits  as  these  laws  are.  In  love  and 
in  the  spirit  of  meekness  I  again  beseech 
you." 

Mary  Dyer's  query  as  to  whether  the 
General  Court  had  "  no  other  weapons  to 
fight  against  spiritual  wickedness  withal," 
reminds  one  of  the  Rhode  Island  way  of 
dealing  with  doctrine.  Roger  Williams 
stoutly  maintained  the  "  freedom  of  differ- 
ent consciences  from  inforcements,"  but  he 
was  far  from  indifferent  as  to  his  neighbors' 
beliefs.  How  could  he  be,  being  a  godly 
man,  and  certain  that  by  belief,  rather  than 
by  conduct,  a  soul  is  to  be  judged?  There 
were  long  discussions  in  Rhode  Island,  de- 
bates on  all  conceivable  questions,  and 
pamphlets  appealing  to  the  reason  and  con- 
science of  the  reader.  These  "  weapons  " 
were  always  at  hand  in  the  Providence 
plantations,  and  doubtless  were  well  known 
to  Mary  Dyer.  Her  appeal  to  the  General 
Court,  written  as  she  supposed  on  the  eve 


QUAKER  BEGINNINGS  29 

of  her  execution,  is  certainly  a  noble  one. 
From  her  point  of  view,  she  could  have 
done  no  less  than  offer  up  her  life,  if  the 
offering  should  secure  liberty  to  her  op- 
pressed brethren.  It  is  difficult  to  see  just 
why  she  supposed  it  would  do  so.  Some- 
thing of  stubbornness  must  have  crept  into 
her  constancy  to  make  her  persist  in  sacri- 
fice. 

Her  letter  had  small  effect  on  the  court, 
as  may  be  imagined,  and  the  day  came  for 
execution.  It  was  the  2yth  of  October, 
1659,  when  the  three  prisoners  were  led  to 
the  gallows,  in  the  afternoon,  escorted  by 
about  two  hundred  armed  men,  beside 
horsemen,  and  the  minister,  John  Wilson. 
The  three  friends  walked  hand  in  hand, 
Mary  Dyer  in  the  middle.  As  she  was  an 
elderly  woman,  the  Marshal  said  to  her, 
"  Are  you  not  ashamed  to  walk  thus,  hand 
in  hand  between  two  young  men  ?  "  "  No," 
replied  she ;  "  this  is  to  me  an  hour  of  the 
greatest  joy  I  could  enjoy  in  the  whole 
world.  No  eye  can  see,  no  tongue  can  ut- 
ter, and  no  heart  can  understand  the  sweet 
incomes  or  influences,  and  the  refreshings 
of  the  spirit  of  the  Lord  which  I  now  feel;  " 
so  "  they  went  on  with  great  cheerfulness, 


30     NARRAGANSETT  FRIENDS'*  MEETING 

as  going  to  an  everlasting  wedding  feast," 
though  the  drummers  drowned  their  voices. 
At  the  gallows  Wilson  made  a  taunting 
remark  to  Robinson :  "  Shall  such  jacks  as 
you  are  come  before  authority  with  their 
hats  on  ?  "  he  asked,  and  Robinson  replied, 
"  Mind  you,  mind  you,  it  is  for  not  putting 
off  the  hat  we  are  put  to  death."  He  was 
the  first  to  suffer.  "  I  suffer  for  Christ,"  he 
said,  "  in  whom  I  live,  and  for  whom  I  die." 
Stevenson  was  next  hanged,  with  a  word  of 
holy  confidence  upon  his  lips,  and  Mary 
Dyer  stepped  up  the  ladder.  The  halter 
was  adjusted,  "  her  coats  were  tied  about 
her  feet,"  the  old  record  says,  and  John 
Wilson  lent  the  hangman  a  handkerchief 
to  cover  her  face.  Just  as  the  hangman 
was  about  to  do  his  work  a  cry  came, 
" '  Stop,  for  she  is  reprieved ! '  Her  feet 
being  then  loosed,  they  bade  her  come 
down.  But  she,  whose  mind  was  already 
as  it  were  in  heaven,  stood  still  and  said  she 
was  there  willing  to  suffer  as  her  brethren 
did,  unless  they  would  annul  their  wicked 
law."  But  they  pulled  her  down  and  car- 
ried her  back  to  prison.  It  now  appears 
that  this  was  a  ghastly  farce  arranged  by 
the  authorities  to  intimidate  this  intrepid 


QUAKER  BEGINNINGS  31 

woman.  The  decree  itself,  signed  before 
she  left  the  prison,  prescribes  the  cruel 
method  of  her  release.  She  was  to  be  car- 
ried "  to  the  place  of  execution  and  there 
to  stand  upon  the  gallowes  with  a  rope 
about  her  necke  till  the  rest  be  executed, 
and  then  to  return  to  the  prison."  * 

It  was  at  the  entreaty  of  her  son  that 
this  reprieve  was  granted  ;  "  an  inconsider- 
able intercession,"  the  Secretary,  Edward 
Rawson,  says,  in  his  account  to  the  king  of 
these  proceedings.  "  Mary  Dyer  (upon  pe- 
tition of  her  son,  and  the  mercy  and  clem- 
ancy  of  this  court)  had  liberty  to  depart 
within  two  days,  which  she  accepted  of," 
Rawson  declares.  From  prison,  the  next 
day  after  the  execution,  at  which  she  mani- 
fested such  heroic  courage,  she  wrote 
another  letter  to  the  General  Court,  full  of 
the  same  spirit.  "  When  I  heard  your  last 
order  read,  it  was  a  disturbance  unto  me, 
that  was  so  freely  offering  up  my  life  to 
him  that  gave  it  me."  She  warns  the 
judges  to  put  away  the  evil  of  their  doings, 
to  "  kiss  the  Son,  the  light  in  you,  before 
his  wrath  be  kindled  in  you."  And  this  she 
wrote  while  the  image  of  her  dead  compan- 

1  Horatio  Rogers,  Mary  Dyer,  the  Quaker  Martyr,  p.  53. 


32     NARRAGANSETT  FRIENDS1  MEETING 

ions  must  still  have  been  before  her  eyes, 
and  the  tale  of  the  barbarous  treatment  of 
their  dead  bodies  in  her  ears.  But  she  re- 
turned to  prison,  she  says,  "  finding  nothing 
from  the  Lord  to  the  contrary,  that  I  may 
know  what  his  pleasure  and  counsel  is  con- 
cerning me,  on  whom  I  wait  therefore,  for 
he  is  my  life  and  the  length  of  my  days ; 
and  as  I  said  before,  I  came  at  his  com- 
mand and  go  at  his  command." 

The  discontent  among  the  people  was  so 
great  that  the  magistrates  resolved  to  send 
Mary  Dyer  away.  She  was  accordingly 
put  on  horseback,  and  escorted  by  four 
horsemen  fifteen  miles  toward  Rhode  Is- 
land, where  she  was  left  with  a  horse  and  a 
man  to  complete  the  journey.  She  spent 
the  winter  in  Long  Island,  and  then,  com- 
ing home  in  the  spring,  she  was  moved  "  to 
return  to  the  bloody  town  of  Boston," 
where  she  arrived  on  the  "  twenty-first  of 
the  Third  month,  1660,"  —  that  is,  May,  for 
the  old  style  of  reckoning  the  year  from  the 
first  of  March  was  still  in  use.  Ten  days 
after  her  arrival  she  was  sent  for  by  the 
General  Court.  "  Are  you  the  same  Mary 
Dyer  that  was  here  before?"  Endicott 
asked  her,  and  it  seems  the  court  was 


QUAKER  BEGINNINGS  33 

preparing  an  escape  for  her,  being  disin- 
clined to  proceed  to  extremities,  for  another 
Mary  Dyer  had  come  from  England.  But 
she  replied  undauntedly,  and  without  eva- 
sion, "  I  am  the  same  Mary  Dyer  that  was 
here  at  the  last  General  Court."  She  was 
then  asked  if  she  avowed  herself  a  Quaker, 
to  which  she  replied :  "  I  own  myself  to  be 
reproachfully  so  called."  Endicott  said  her 
sentence  had  been  passed,  and  was  now  the 
same.  "  You  must  return  to  prison,"  he 
said,  "  and  there  remain  till  to-morrow  at 
nine  o'clock,  then,  thence  you  must  go  to 
the  gallows  and  there  be  hanged  till  you 
are  dead."  "  This  is  no  more  than  what 
thou  saidst  before,"  Mary  Dyer  rejoined. 
"  But  now  it  is  to  be  executed,  therefore 
prepare  yourself  to-morrow  at  nine  o'clock," 
Endicott  replied. 

She  then  said,  "  I  came  in  obedience  to 
the  will  of  God  to  the  last  General  Court, 
desiring  you  to  repeal  your  unrighteous 
laws  of  banishment  on  pain  of  death ;  and 
that  same  is  my  work  now,  and  earnest  re- 
quest," and  more  she  said  of  her  call,  and 
of  others  who  would  come  to  witness  against 
these  laws.  Endicott  asked  her  if  she  were 
a  prophetess,  to  which  she  replied  that  she 


34     NARRAGANSETT  FRIENDS'  MEETING 

spoke  the  words  the  Lord  spoke  in  her,  but 
Endicott  cried  out,  "  Away  with  her !  away 
with  her !  "  So  she  was  taken  to  prison. 

A  letter  from  her  husband  arrived  about 
the  time  Mary  Dyer  entered  the  colony, 
being  under  sentence  of  banishment  on 
pain  of  death.  "  If  her  zeal  be  so  great  as 
thus  to  adventure,  oh,  let  your  pity  and 
favor  surmount  it  and  save  her  life,"  her 
husband  pleads. 

I  only  say  this,  yourfelves  have  been, 
and  are  or  may  be,  huf  bands  to  wives :  so 
am  I,  yea  to  one  moil  dearly  beloved. 
Oh  do  not  deprive  me  of  her,  but  I  pray 
give  her  me  once  again.  Pity  me !  I  beg 
it  with  tears,  and  reft  your  humble  sup- 
pliant.1 

But  this  touching  appeal  was  of  no  avail. 
The  next  day,  June  ist,  the  Marshal  came 
and  roughly  commanded  Mary  Dyer  to  fol- 
low him.  Then  she  was  brought  out,  and 
with  a  band  of  soldiers  led  through  the 
town,  with  drums  beaten  before  and  be- 
hind her.  What  a  scene  for  the  quiet 
streets  of  a  New  England  town!  The  fresh 
leaves  of  early  summer  upon  the  trees,  the 
sun  shining  overhead,  the  whole  popula- 

1  Bryant's  History,  vol.  ii.  p.  194. 


QUAKER  BEGINNINGS  35 

tion  following  the  soldiers,  the  noisy  drums 
rattling  discordant  notes,  and  the  centre  of 
of  it  all  one  lonely  woman,  "  of  a  comly  and 
grave  countenance,"  and  the  undaunted  car- 
riage of  a  pure  and  lofty  spirit,  calmly  walk- 
ing to  the  fate  which  she  had  once  before 
confronted,  and  which  even  now  by  a  word 
from  her  could  be  averted !  For  after  she 
had  ascended  the  ladder  it  was  said  to  her 
that  if  she  would  return  she  should  be 
spared.  "  Nay  I  cannot,"  she  replied,  "  for 
in  obedience  to  the  will  of  the  Lord  I  came, 
and  in  his  will  I  abide  faithful  to  the  death." 
Then  the  captain,  John  Webb,  said  that 
she  had  been  there  before,  and  was  there- 
fore guilty  of  her  own  death,  knowing  the 
penalty  of  returning  to  Boston ;  to  which 
she  replied :  — 

Nay,  I  came  to  keep  blood  guiltinefs 
from  you,  defiring  you  to  repeal  the  un- 
righteous and  unjuft  law  of  banifhment 
upon  pain  of  death,  made  againft  the 
innocent  servants  of  the  Lord ;  therefore 
my  blood  will  be  required  at  your  hands 
who  wilfully  do  it ;  but  for  thofe  who  do 
it  in  the  simplicity  of  their  hearts  I  defire 
the  Lord  to  forgive  them. 
Then  Wilson,  the  minister,  who  had  lent 


36     NARRAGANSETT  FRIENDS'  MEETING 

his  handkerchief  to  cover  her  face  before, 
said  to  her,  "  Mary  Dyer,  oh  repent,  oh  re- 
pent, and  be  not  so  deluded  and  carried 
away  by  the  deceit  of  the  devil."  One  can 
fancy  the  touch  of  scorn  which  must  have 
tinged  her  manner,  saintly  as  she  was,  as 
she  replied,  "  Nay,  man,  I  am  not  now  to 
repent." 

Then  she  was  asked  if  she  would  not 
have  the  elders  pray  for  her,  but  answered, 
"  I  know  never  an  elder  here." 

They  asked  if  she  would  have  any  of  the 
people  pray  for  her,  to  which  she  replied 
she  desired  the  prayers  of  all  the  people  of 
God.  Some  one  scoffingly  said,  "  It  may 
be  she  thinks  there  is  none  here."  And 
she,  looking  calmly  about,  said,  "  I  know 
but  few  here."  The  prayers  of  the  elders 
were  again  urged  upon  her.  "  Nay,"  she 
said,  "  first  a  child,  then  a  young  man,  then 
a  strong  man,  before  an  elder  in  Christ 
Jesus." 

Then  some  one  mentioned  that  she  said 
she  had  been  in  paradise.  "  Yea,  I  have 
been  in  paradise  several  days,"  she  an- 
swered, and  continued  to  speak  of  the  eter- 
nal happiness  she  was  to  enter  upon.  So 
she  met  her  death,  and  died,  as  her  chroni- 


QUAKER  BEGINNINGS  37 

cler  says,  "  a  martyr  to  Christ,  being  twice 
led  to  death,  which  the  first  time  she  ex- 
pected with  undaunted  courage,  and  now 
suffered  with  Christian  fortitude." 

I  have  dwelt  at  length  upon  the  story  of 
Mary  Dyer's  heroic  courage,  because  she 
was  the  only  woman  who  suffered  death  in 
that  time  of  persecution,  and  because  she 
was  a  Rhode  Island  woman,  closely  bound 
by  ties  of  love  and  friendship  to  the  Friends 
already  in  Rhode  Island. 

At  this  distance  of  time,  we  can  see  that 
the  magistrates  also  had  something  to  plead 
as  warrant  for  their  conduct.  She  had  been 
warned,  and  in  coming  back  took  her  life 
in  her  hand.  The  dignity  of  the  law  had 
to  be  upheld.  We  have  had  cases  in  more 
recent  times  of  unjust  laws  being  enforced, 
by  judges  who  did  not  believe  in  them,  in 
the  very  town  of  Boston,  in  the  time  of  the 
fugitive  slaves.  There  was  something  in 
their  argument  that  her  blood  was  upon 
her  own  head.  But  with  the  spirit  of  a 
saint  she  rose  above  all  human  argument. 
Like  a  Hebrew  of  old  she  could  say,  "  The 
word  of  the  Lord  came  unto  me;"  and 
with  St.  Paul,  "  Woe  is  me  if  I  preach  not 
the  gospel."  This  zeal  consumed  her. 


38     NARRAGANSETT  FRIENDS?  MEETING 

Quaker  though  she  was,  and  so  bound  to 
meekness  by  teaching  and  principle,  she 
had  tasted  the  glories  of  martyrdom,  and 
could  not  rest  till  she  was  counted  worthy 
to  suffer  to  the  end.  If,  in  our  modern 
spirit,  we  inquire  what  her  husband  and 
children  said  to  her  sacrifice  not  only  of 
herself  but  of  them,  and  the  suffering  and 
pain  she  brought  them,  her  grave  face,  with 
its  rapt  expression,  rises  to  rebuke  us.  This 
life  was  nothing,  the  next  all,  in  those  stern, 
heroic  times.  Earthly  affections  were  to  be 
trodden  under  foot.  "  Set  your  affections 
on  things  above "  was  an  injunction  to  be 
literally  followed.  So,  with  a  responsive 
thrill  for  her  noble  courage,  and  a  sigh  for 
the  occasion  of  it,  we  finish  the  record  of 
this  heroic  woman.  Her  death  reaped  its 
harvest.  The  "  Seed,"  as  Friends  delighted 
to  call  the  principles  of  truth  they  lived  and 
died  for,  flourished  abundantly.  Within 
a  year  of  Mary  Dyer's  death,  the  Rhode 
Island  yearly  meeting  was  established, 
which  grew  till  it  became  the  general  meet- 
ing for  the  whole  of  New  England. 


II 


THE  ESTABLISHMENT  OF  THE 
SOUTH  KINGSTON  MONTHLY 
MEETING 


II 


THE  little  colony  which  proved  a  refuge 
for  Quakers  not  only,  but  for  all  those  of 
oppressed  conscience,  had  only  been  united 
as  to  civil  government  three  years,  when 
the  Woodhouse  landed  her  missionary  band 
on  the  "isle  of  Aquiday."  There  were 
political  dissensions  as  well  as  religious. 
After  the  charter  had  been  granted  to 
Roger  Williams,  in  1643,  it  was  still  four 
years  before  the  towns  united  in  setting 
"their  hands  to  an  engagement  to  the 
charter ;  " l  a  delay  caused  in  part  by  the 
difficulties  of  travel,  and  the  long  voyage 
from  England.  The  two  island  towns  of 
Newport  and  Portsmouth  were  richer  than 
the  little  towns  of  Providence  and  War- 
wick, and  local  jealousies  were  rife.  Gov- 
ernor Coddington  of  Newport,  in  1651, 
obtained  a  commission  as  governor  for  life, 
"whereby  the  Townes  of  Newport  and 
Portsmouth  were  disjoynted  from  the  Col- 
onie  of  Providence  Plantations,"2  and  it 

*  R.  I.  c.  R.,  vol.  i.  p.  147. 

3  R.  I.  C.  R.,  vol.  i.  p.  268. 


42     NARRAGANSETT  FRIENDS*  MEETING 

was  not  till  August  31,  1654,  that  the  final 
union  of  the  towns  was  accomplished. 

With  this  disordered  political  condition, 
the  religious  conditions  were  still  more 
disturbed.  The  disaffected  from  all  the 
colonies  came  to  Rhode  Island.  All  vari- 
eties and  shades  of  opinions  could  be 
found,  from  harmless  mysticism  to  doc- 
trines subversive  of  the  good  order  of  so- 
ciety, and  many  a  wild  theory  was  pro- 
pounded. Rhode  Island  has  often  been 
spoken  of  as  a  colony  of  religious  tolera- 
tion. But  it  was  not  toleration  that  Roger 
Williams  taught.  He  laid  down  a  larger 
principle,  the  "  freedom  of  different  con- 
sciences from  inforcement,"  that  is,  the 
broad  principle  of  each  man's  being  the 
sole  arbiter  of  his  own  fate,  and  directly 
responsible  to  his  Maker  for  his  belief. 
This  was  a  new  doctrine,  a  doctrine  of 
growth  and  development,  calculated  to  build 
strong  and  noble  characters.  But,  while 
remaining  true  to  it,  Roger  Williams  did 
not  weakly  shake  off  all  responsibility  as 
to  the  spiritual  condition  of  his  colonists. 
On  the  contrary,  while  keeping  clear  from 
the  "  inforcements  "  which  were  so  freely 
used  in  the  neighboring  colonies,  he  gave 


SOUTH  KINGSTON  MEETING  43 

full  rein  to  his  tongue,  using  all  the  wea- 
pons of  argument  and  invective  to  scourge 
the  wayward  fanatics  who  came  to  him 
back  into  what  he  considered  the  true  way. 
The  story  has  often  been  told,  and  needs 
no  repeating  here.  Whittier,  with  true  in- 
sight, has  entered  into  Roger  Williams's 
feeling,  in  "  A  Spiritual  Manifestation," 
when  he  makes  him  say :  — 

"  Each  zealot  thrust  before  my  eyes 

His  Scripture-garbled  label ; 
All  creeds  were  shouted  in  my  ears 
As  with  the  tongues  of  Babel. 

"  Hoarse  ranters,  crazed  Fifth  Monarchists 

Of  stripes  and  bondage  braggarts, 
Pale  Churchmen,  with  singed  rubrics  snatched 
From  Puritanic  fagots. 

"  And  last,  not  least,  the  Quakers  came, 
With  tongues  still  sore  from  burning, 
The  Bay  State's  dust  from  off  their  feet 
Before  my  threshold  spurning; 

"  A  motley  host,  the  Lord's  debris, 

Faith's  odds  and  ends  together ; 
Well  might  I  shrink  from  guests  with  lungs 
Tough  as  their  breeches  leather : 


"  I  fed,  but  spared  them  not  a  wit ; 

I  gave  to  all  who  walked  in, 
Not  clams  and  succotash  alone, 
But  stronger  meat  of  doctrine. 


44     NARRAGANSETT  FRIENDS    MEETING 

"  I  proved  the  prophets  false,  I  pricked 

The  bubble  of  perfection, 
And  clapped  upon  their  inner  light 
The  snuffers  of  election." 


It  was  in  this  country  of  "faith's  odds 
and  ends  "  that  the  Quakers  found  their 
opportunity.  The  martyrdom  of  Mary  Dyer 
watered  the  seed,  and  when  George  Fox 
came,  twelve  years  later,  he  confirmed  the 
church.  The  visit  of  Fox  was  the  starting 
point  for  many  meetings  in  America,  but 
in  coming  to  Rhode  Island  he  came  to  his 
own.  He  arrived  on  the  3oth  of  the  3d 
month,  1672,  from  Long  Island,  and  was 
"  gladly  received  by  Friends,"  he  writes. 
This  was  the  3oth  of  May  that  he  arrived, 
when  he  "  went  to  Nicholas  Eastons,  who 
was  governor  of  the  Island ;  there  we  lay, 
being  weary  with  travelling."  He  had  a 
meeting  the  next  first  day,  a  large  meet- 
ing, he  says,  "  to  which  the  deputy  gov- 
ernor and  several  justices  came,  and  were 
mightily  affected  with  the  truth."  It  is 
curious  to  note  how  often  Fox  mentions 
the  dignitaries  who  attended  his  meetings, 
in  spite  of  his  being  no  respecter  of  per- 
sons. The  week  following  his  arrival,  the 
June  yearly  meeting  for  Friends  in  New 


SOUTH  KINGSTON  MEETING  45 

England  was  held.  Fox  himself  tells  the 
story  of  it.  Some  Barbadoes  friends  ar- 
rived ;  and  the  meeting  lasted  six  days,  he 
says,  and  — 

Abundance  of  other  people  came.    For 
having  no  priefts  in  the   ifland,  and  no 
reftriction  to  any  particular  way  of  wor- 
ship ;  and  the  governor  and  deputy-gov- 
ernor with  several  juftices  of  the  peace 
daily  frequenting  meetings ;  it  so  encour- 
aged the  people  that  they  flocked  in  from 
all  parts  of  the  ifland.  ...  I  have  rarely 
obferved  a  people  in  the  state  wherein 
they  stood,  to  hear  with  more  attention, 
diligence,  and  affection,   than   generally 
they  did  during  the  four  days. 
Men's   and  women's  meetings  followed 
for  "  ordering   the   affairs    of   the   church, 
.  .  .  that   all   might   be  kept  clean,  sweet 
and  savory  amongft  them."     After  which 
Friends  dispersed.     But   Fox  and   Robert 
Widders   stayed    on    the    island,    "  finding 
service  still  here  for  the  Lord  through  the 
great  openness,  and  the  daily  coming  in  of 
frefh  people  from  other  colonies  for  some 
time  after  the  general  meeting."     "After 
this  I  had  great  travail  in  spirit,"  he  writes, 
"concerning   the    Ranters   in   those  parts 


46     NARRAGANSETT  FRIENDS  MEETING 

who  had  been  rude  at  a  meeting  which  I 
was  not  at."  So  he  appointed  a  meeting 
among  them,  "  believing  the  Lord  would 
give  me  power  over  them;  which  he  did  to 
his  praise  and  glory."  At  this  meeting 
also  there  were  justices  and  officers  who 
were  "generally  well  affected  with  the 
truth."  One  justice  of  twenty  years'  stand- 
ing was  convinced,  "spoke  highly  of  the 
truth,  and  more  highly  of  me,"  Fox  adds, 
"  than  is  fit  for  me  to  mention  or  take  no- 
tice of."  What  comfort  it  must  have  been 
to  the  travelling  Friend,  who  was  usually 
greeted  with  stripes  and  imprisonment  in 
his  own  country,  to  find  true  appreciation ! 
His  chief  acquaintance  with  justices  in 
England  was  as  a  prisoner  on  charge  of 
breaking  the  peace,  and  it  is  small  wonder 
that,  saint  as  he  was,  this  being  heard  with 
favor  by  justices  and  officers  should  have 
seemed  to  him  a  special  cause  for  thanks- 
giving. 

After  the  Newport  meetings,  Fox  went 
to  Providence  in  great  travail  of  spirit,  for 
the  people,  he  says,  "  were  generally  above 
the  priests  in  high  notions ;  and  some 
came  on  purpose  to  dispute."  There  had 
been  absolute  freedom  in  the  little  town  of 


SOUTH  KINGSTON  MEETING  47 

Providence  in  the  thirty-six  years  of  its  ex- 
istence. Each  householder  could,  and  often 
did,  exhort.  Roger  Williams,  with  the  hu- 
mility of  greatness,  counted  himself  only  as 
a  teacher  also  ;  one  among  many.  But  the 
power  of  George  Fox's  eloquence  and  per- 
sonality silenced  his  opponents.  He  came 
from  Newport  by  water,  attended  by  the 
governor  and  many  others,  and  held  his 
meeting  in  a  great  barn,  which  was  thronged 
with  people,  "  so  that  I  was  exceeding  hot, 
and  in  a  great  sweat,"  he  writes ;  "  but  all 
was  well ;  the  glorious  power  of  the  Lord 
shined  over  all !  " 

Roger  Williams  was  not  at  the  meeting 
that  hot  summer's  day,  but  a  little  later 
rowed  himself  to  Newport  to  confront  the 
advocates  of  the  Quaker  doctrine.  He  and 
Fox  did  not  meet,  however.  One  wonders 
if  they  could  have  recognized  the  nobility 
of  each  other's  nature  had  they  seen  each 
other  face  to  face,  or  if  the  "  Burrows  "  from 
which  Roger  Williams  "  diggd  George  Fox 1 " 
were  too  dark  and  mystical  for  the  scientific 
spirit  of  Williams  to  tolerate.  There  must 
always  be  the  two  orders  of  men,  —  the  intui- 
tive seer,  and  the  logical  reasoner.  Both 

1  George  Fox  diggd  out  of  his  Burrows. 


48     NARRAGANSETT  FRIENDS'  MEETING 

these  men  have  their  noble  share  of  the 
world's  work,  and  in  the  case  of  Fox  and 
Williams  both  made  a  distinct  contribution 
to  the  spiritual  life  of  mankind  ;  Fox  with 
his  devout  and  keen  perception  of  divine 
immanence  in  the  indwelling  spirit,  and 
Williams  with  his  new  doctrine  of  the  free- 
dom of  man's  conscience  from  "  inforce- 
ments."  These  two  should  certainly  have 
found  points  of  contact  in  an  age  which 
is  the  fruit  of  both  their  teachings.  As  it 
was,  the  apostle  came  to  the  town  of  the 
liberator,  and  left  it  without  seeing  him. 
After  the  manner  of  the  time,  they  both 
wrote  polemical  tracts,  the  most  famous 
of  which  is  Williams's  "  George  Fox  diggd 
out  of  his  Burrows." 

Returning  to  Newport,  Fox  next  went 
across  the  Bay  to  Narragansett.  Again  the 
governor  accompanied  him,  and  they  held 
a  meeting  at  a  justice's,  "  where  Friends 
never  had  any  before."  I  have  elsewhere 
endeavored  to  show  that  this  meeting  was 
probably  held  at  the  house  of  Jireh  Bull,1 
who  was  a  justice  at  that  time.  The  year 
before,  the  General  Court  sat  at  his  house. 
It  was  sometimes  called  the  garrison  house, 

1  College  Tom,  p.  9.    Houghton,  Mifflin  &  Co. 


SOUTH  KINGSTON  MEETING  49 

and  was  the  largest  in  Pettaquamscut.  "  The 
meeting  was  very  large,  for  the  country 
generally  came  in,  and  people  from  Con- 
necticut and  other  parts  round  about,"1 
Fox  writes.  "  There  were  four  justices  of 
the  peace,"  he  adds.  "  Most  of  these  peo- 
ple were  such  as  had  never  heard  Friends 
before ;  but  they  were  mightily  affected, 
and  a  great  desire  there  is  after  the  truth 
amongst  them.  So  that  meeting  was  of 
very  good  service  ;  blessed  be  the  Lord  for- 
ever !  "  The  justice  at  whose  house  the 
meeting  was  held  invited  Fox  to  come 
again,  but  he  was  then  "  clear  of  those 
parts."  But  he  laid  the  place  before  John 
Burnyeate  and  John  Cartwright,  who  ar- 
rived in  Newport  before  he  left,  and  they 
"felt  drawings  thither  and  went  to  visit 
them." 

The  house  in  which  this  Narragansett 
meeting  was  established  had  a  tragic  fate. 
It  stood  on  the  old  Pequot  trail,  which  in 
Queen  Anne's  time  became  the  highway, 
on  the  ridge  of  Tower  Hill.  Tradition 
places  it  on  the  right-hand  side  travelling 
north,  a  little  distance  south  of  the  present 
corner  made  by  the  descent  of  the  road 

1  Journal,  p.  452. 


50    NARRAGANSETT  FRIENDS'  MEETING 

running  to  the  west.  Only  three  years 
later,  in  December,  1675,  it  was  destroyed 
by  Indians,  and  many  of  its  inmates,  includ- 
ing women  and  children,  were  killed.  It 
was  the  destruction  of  this  house  which  was 
the  actual  incitement  to  the  Great  Swamp 
Fight,  which  practically  exterminated  the 
Indians,  and  put  an  end  to  King  Philip's 
War. 

There  are  no  records  of  Friends'  meet- 
ings on  the  west  side  of  the  Bay  until  1702, 
when  the  Greenwich  meeting  was  estab- 
lished, which  included  the  Narragansett 
Friends.  This  at  first  sight  seems  singu- 
lar, for  Narragansett,  and  southern  Narra- 
gansett, had  been  the  place  of  Fox's  visit, 
and  was  occupied  by  some  influential  con- 
verts. 

But  there  were  good  reasons  why  the 
King's  Province  could  not  establish  a  meet- 
ing in  those  early  days.  The  country  was 
claimed  by  charter  right  by  both  Connecti- 
cut and  Rhode  Island,  and  endless  contro- 
versies ensued  as  to  the  government.  But 
in  addition  to  this,  the  land  was  claimed  by 
two  rival  purchasers  ;  the  Pettaquamscut 
purchasers,  who  bought  Boston  Neck  and 
lands  adjacent  of  the  Indians  in  1657,  and 


SOUTH  KINGSTON  MEETING  51 

the  Humphrey  Atherton  Company,  who 
bought  "  two  parsels  of  lande,"  called  the 
Northern  and  Southern  tract,  in  1659.  This 
land  covered  the  land  of  the  earlier  pur- 
chase, including  Point  Juda  and  Sugar 
Loaf  Hill.1  Both  these  companies  had  the 
Indian  "  sagamores  "  put  their  marks  to  the 
deeds  of  purchase,  which  they  naturally  had 
little  conception  of.  This  is  not  the  place 
for  a  study  of  the  interesting  and  extended 
controversy  which  ensued.  But  a  glance 
at  the  men  who  were  engaged  in  it,  and  who 
claimed  the  right  of  proprietors  in  the  land, 
will  explain  why  Friends  for  some  years 
did  not  set  up  a  meeting  in  Narragansett. 
Among  the  Pettaquamscut  purchasers,  Sam- 
uel Sewall  soon  became  a  leading  spirit. 
He  was  an  example  of  the  best  Puritans  of 
his  time,  but  his  action  in  the  trial  of  the 
Salem  witches  shows  the  bigotry  to  which 
the  best  men  were  liable.  Of  the  other 
company,  the  man  who  gave  it  its  name, 
Major  Humphrey  Atherton,  or  Adderton, 
as  some  records  spell  it,  was  active  in  his 
persecution  of  Quakers.  Simon  Bradstreet 
was  another  zealous  bigot.  The  younger 
Winthrop,  governor  of  Connecticut,  was 

1  The  Town  Records,  edited  by  James  N.  Arnold. 


$2     NARRAGANSETT  FRIENDS'  MEETING 

far  more  liberal,  and  his  name,  as  the  high- 
est in  rank,  comes  first  in  the  deeds,  but 
his  influence  in  the  affairs  of  the  company 
was  second  to  Atherton's.  It  is  hardly  prob- 
able that  zealous  persecutors  at  home 
would  have  tolerated  Quaker  organizations 
in  the  new  purchase,  which  they  hoped  to 
develop  into  a  prosperous  colony.  It  was 
Atherton  who  scoffed  at  the  death  of  Mary 
Dyer,  saying  she  hung  as  a  flag  for  others 
to  take  warning  by.  Long  after  her  death, 
in  passing  the  place  where  Quakers  suf- 
fered, as  he  rode  proudly  by,  having  re- 
viewed his  troops,  his  horse  took  fright  and 
threw  him  violently,  dashing  his  head  in 
pieces.  There  were  not  lacking  those  who 
said  the  animal  saw  the  ghost  of  one  of  the 
martyrs,  and  that  their  death  was  avenged. 
But  even  after  Atherton's  tragic  end,  Simon 
Bradstreet's  name  would  have  held  in  check 
the  open  organization  of  a  meeting. 

That  the  meeting  was  held,  however,  would 
seem  to  be  indicated  from  several  facts.  It 
was  in  1699  that  the  Rhode  Island  quar- 
terly meeting  was  established,  consisting  of 
three  monthly  meetings,  Rhode  Island, 
Dartmouth,  and  Narragansett  This  last 
meeting  was  at  first  called  Kingstown  meet- 


SOUTH  KINGSTON  MEETING  53 

ing,  but  very  soon  changed  to  Greenwich, 
and  included  all  the  Friends  on  the  west 
side  of  the  Bay,  from  Narragansett  to  Prov- 
idence. A  little  meeting-house  was  built 
in  East  Greenwich  in  1699,  the  first  one 
on  the  west  of  the  Bay,  meetings  having 
been  held  before  at  private  houses.  The 
records  of  the  Greenwich  monthly  meeting 
begin  in  5th  month,  1699  (the  day  is  obliter- 
ated), at  the  house  of  John  Briggs,  when  it 
was  agreed  that  he  "  write  for  these  meet- 
ings." A  month  later  the  meeting  was  held 
at  Jabez  Greene's  house,  and  on  the  5th  of 
sixth  month  of  the  same  year  the  "  next 
meeting  is  appointed  to  be  held  at  the  new 
meeting  house  in  East  Greenwich." 

This  little  meeting-house  was  built  to 
the  west  of  the  village,  and  had  a  burial- 
ground  adjoining.  It  was  the  first  meeting- 
house west  of  Narragansett  Bay ;  and  here 
the  meetings  were  held,  not  only  the  first- 
day  meeting  for  worship,  but  the  monthly 
meetings,  to  which  representatives  came 
from  South  Kingstown,  Providence,  and 
Warwick.  In  1 707  the  meetings  began  to 
beheld  in  rotation,  three  yearly  at  Providence 
and  three  at  Kingstown.  This  arrange- 
ment continued  till  1718,  when  Providence 


54     NARRAGANSETT  FRIENDS'  MEETING 

became  a  distinct  monthly  meeting.  South 
Kingstown  Friends  still  came  to  Greenwich 
for  monthly  meeting.  Rowland  Robinson, 
John  Briggs,  Peter  Greene,  the  Knowleses 
and  'Rodmans  were  among  the  representa- 
tives of  the  southern  part  of  the  State.  It 
was  a  time  of  great  prosperity  for  Narra- 
gansett.  The  farms  yielded  bountifully ; 
the  ferry  to  Newport  was  crowded  with 
droves  of  sheep  and  cattle  going  to  market, 
and  produce  of  all  kinds.  The  tide  of  travel 
was  all  set  across  the  Bay  rather  than  to  the 
head  of  the  Bay,  and  before  many  years 
Narragansett  Friends  petitioned  for  a  sepa- 
rate meeting.  It  was  at  the  third  month 
monthly  meeting,  1743,  when  Thomas  Rod- 
man and  Matthew  Allin  (sic)  were  repre- 
sentatives from  South  Kingstown,  that  an 
epistle  from  the  quarterly  meeting  was  read 
at  Greenwich,  which  allowed  the  meeting  to 
be  divided  into  two  monthly  meetings.  The 
record  continues :  — 

This  meeting  concludes  that  the 
monthly  meeting  is  divided  into  two 
monthly  meetings  as  the  Preparative 
meetings  were  before  this  divifion,  and 
that  South  Kingftown  monthly  meeting 
be  held  on  the  2nd  day  after  the  laft  Ist 


SOUTH  KINGSTON  MEETING  55 

day  in  this  month  to  do  the  proper  bufi- 
ness  of  that  meeting  in  the  meeting  house 
of  Friends  in  South  Kingstown. 
There  is  no  indication  as  to  when  the 
"  meeting  house  of  Friends  in  South  Kings- 
town "  was  built.     For  many  years  it  was 
called  "  the  old  meeting  house,"  and  in  1 743 
it  became  the  centre  of  influence  and  seat 
of  government  of  Friends  in  Narragansett. 


Ill 

THE   MEETING-HOUSES 


Ill 


IT  was  the  third  month,  1743,  that  the 
South  Kingstown  monthly  meeting  began 
its  existence  by  the  consent  of  the  quarterly 
meeting  and  the  Greenwich  meeting,  to 
which  the  South  Kingstown  preparative 
meeting  had  belonged.  The  first  monthly 
meeting  was  appointed  the  following  month, 
but  the  records  do  not  begin  till  the  fifth 
month,  1743.  There  are  eight  folio  vol- 
umes belonging  to  the  men's  meeting,  which 
contain  the  records  of  the  business  of  the 
meeting  from  month  to  month,  the  list  of 
births,  marriages,  and  deaths,  and  a  beau- 
tiful manuscript  of  the  English  book  of 
discipline,  which  was  made  between  1761 
and  1763.  Thomas  Hazard  and  Joseph 
Congdon  were  the  committee  appointed  to 
see  to  this  work,  for  which  fifty  pounds 
old  tenor  was  paid.  It  is  entitled  "  Chris- 
tian &  Brotherly  Advices  Given  forth  from 
time  to  time  By  the  yearly  Meeting  in 
London.  Alphabetically  Digefted  under 
Proper  Heads.  Tranfcribed  by  Jos :  Cong- 


60     NARRAGANSETT  FRIENDS1  MEETING 

don."  Beside  the  records  of  the  men's 
meeting,  there  are  three  volumes  of  wo- 
men's records,  —  the  earliest  a  small  quarto, 
the  others  large  folios.  There  is  also  a 
mass  of  papers  belonging  to  the  meeting, 
deeds  of  the  meeting-house  lands,  epistles 
from  quarterly  meetings,  beginning  as  early 
as  1747,  yearly  meeting  epistles,  and  the 
originals  of  various  papers  copied  in  the 
records.  They  are  a  set  of  time-stained 
books  and  documents,  the  paper  discolored 
and  brittle,  cracking  in  the  folds,  exhaling 
the  peculiar  breath  of  long-kept  mustiness. 
The  handwriting  is  often  crabbed,  the  spell- 
ing eccentric,  the  records  themselves  curt 
and  scanty.  Yet  here  is  preserved  all 
that  is  left  of  the  best  life  of  many  good 
men  and  women.  The  voice  of  their 
preaching  has  died  upon  the  air,  the  savor 
of  their  virtues  exists  only  in  tradition  ;  but 
the  record  of  their  actual  work  is  preserved 
The  houses  of  worship  which  they  built 
have  crumbled,  but  the  account  of  their 
labors  in  building  remains. 

It  is  often  said  we  lack  glamour  in  Amer- 
ica, that  our  perspective  is  limited,  that  we 
have  no  picturesque  past.  But  all  these 
things  lie  more  in  the  eye  of  the  beholder 


THE  MEETING-HOUSES  6 1 

than  in  external  objects.  Natural  beauty 
is  as  beautiful  in  New  England  as  in  Old. 
We  have  no  Tintern  Abbey,  it  is  true,  but 
our  greater  lack  is  a  Wordsworth  to  cele- 
brate it. 

"  Art  was  given  for  that ; 
God  uses  us  to  help  each  other  so, 
Lending  our  minds  out." 

It  is  the  mind,  the  love,  the  life  of  man 
which  must  reveal  beauty  to  us  who  have 
our  turn  at  living  now.  Looked  at  in  this 
spirit,  what  can  be  more  fascinating,  what 
can  claim  our  interest  and  reverent  affec- 
tion, more  than  such  a  mass  of  records  and 
papers  as  those  of  the  Narragansett  meet- 
ing? For  this  was  life:  this  meant  not  only 
daily  affairs,  of  which  there  is  abundant 
evidence,  but  it  meant  the  care  of  good 
men  for  the  soul's  welfare.  We  may  have 
outgrown  the  methods ;  humanity  cannot 
outgrow  the  aim. 

Whatever  those  worthies  truly  wrought 
has  gone  into  the  fabric  of  later  time. 
Their  Narragansett  lies  before  us,  un- 
changed as  to  physical  features,  but  more 
thickly  peopled,  with  villages  dotting  the 
pleasant  dales.  Let  us  try  to  turn  back  the 
years  to  that  summer  day  in  1743  when 


62  NARRAGANSETT  FRIENDS'  MEETING 

the  first  recorded  meeting  was  held.  Rid- 
ing through  the  narrow  lanes,  from  beyond 
Little  Rest  and  up  from  Westerly,  came  the 
representatives  to  that  meeting.  The  old 
meeting-house  —  old  in  1 743  —  stood  upon 
the  southern  spur  of  Tower  Hill,  a  mile  or 
more  from  the  village.  The  first  mention 
of  this  building  occurs  in  Judge  Sewall's 
diary,  under  an  entry  of  Friday,  September 
20,  1706,  when  he  went  "into  the  Quaker 
Meeting  Houfe,  about  thirty-five  feet  long, 
thirty  feet  wide,  on  Hazard's  ground,  which 
was  mine."1  The  sale  of  this  land  to 
Thomas  Hazard  was  made  in  1698,  so  that 
it  must  have  been  a  comparatively  new 
building  at  the  time  of  Sewall's  visit.  The 
South  Kingstown  Records  have  something 
further  to  say  of  this  land.  August  4,  1710, 
Thomas  Hazard  sold  one  acre  to  Ebenezer 
Slocum,  of  Jamestown,  for  forty  shillings ; 
and  the  next  day  it  was  conveyed  by  Slocum 
to  Rowland  Robinson,  Samuel  Perry,  Henry 
Knowles,  Jr.,  Thomas  Rodman,  and  Jacob 
Mott,  for  the  same  consideration.  The 
bounds  are  given,  easterly  and  southerly  by 
the  road,  the  rest  by  Hazard's  land,  "  being 
that  parcel  of  land  on  which  Stands  a  cer- 

1  Seivall  Papers,  vol.  ii.  p.  168. 


THE  MEETING-HOUSES  63 

tain  Meeting  House  in  which  the  people 
called  Quakers  usually  meet." 1  It  com- 
manded a  wide  prospect  of  land  and  water. 
At  the  foot  of  the  hill  the  chain  of  Point 
Judith  ponds  begins,  which  separate  the 
Point  from  the  mainland ;  and  the  perilous 
Point  itself,  called  in  the  old  deeds  Point 
Juda,  or  Point  Jude,  stretches  a  warning 
finger  far  out  into  the  white  breakers. 
Block  Island,  the  land  of  Manassees,  lies  in 
the  distance  to  the  southwest ;  while  to  the 
east  the  unbroken  ocean  stretches  to  the 
coast  of  Africa.  Close  at  hand,  the  Petta- 
quamscut  winds  through  its  marshes;  the 
crescent  of  Little  Neck  beach  is  white  with 
foam ;  and  but  a  little  farther  the  windows 
of  Newport  gleam  in  the  sunshine.  A 
lovely  prospect  those  "weighty"  Friends  had 
to  look  upon.  Some  of  the  women  doubt- 
less enjoyed  it,  but  the  appeal  of  natural 
beauty  was  not  generally  felt,  and  the  com- 
manding situation  was  doubtless  chosen 
more  in  reference  to  the  onslaught  of  In- 
dians than  for  picturesqueness. 

In  this  "  olde  meeting  house  "  the  meet- 
ing was  organized.  Peter  Davis  was  chosen 
"to  write  for  the  meeting,"  —  to  become  its 

1  South  Kingstown  Records,  vol.  ii. 


64    NARRAGANSETT  FRIENDS'  MEETING 

clerk,  in  other  words.  He  does  not  record 
the  fact  himself;  it  is  only  from  a  subse- 
quent entry,  when  he  was  superseded,  that 
it  is  learned.  He  had  an  interesting  career, 
which  is  briefly  outlined  by  the  records, 
in  which  he  constantly  appears.  Thomas 
Rodman  was  chosen  the  meeting's  trea- 
surer, and  served  long  and  well.  He  was 
called  Dr.  Rodman,  and  practised  the  heal- 
ing art.  This  was  perhaps  the  only  title 
that  the  strictness  of  Friends  admitted  of ; 
but  the  life  of  a  country  physician,  who 
literally  went  about  doing  good,  earned 
this  most  peaceful  and  honorable  of  titles. 
Books  for  record  were  bought,  for  which 
£2  14*.  were  paid,  and  the  meeting  entered 
on  the  difficult  question  of  fixing  its  bound- 
aries. In  a  new  country  this  is  always  a 
serious  task,  and  in  no  part  of  New  Eng- 
land was  there  more  difficulty  than  in  Nar- 
ragansett.  As  already  detailed,  rival  gov- 
ernments claimed  the  whole  country;  and 
the  inhabitants  must  have  become  accus- 
tomed to  an  unsettled  state  of  affairs  of  this 
nature,  for  it  took  the  sober  and  orderly 
Friends  of  Narragansett  seventeen  years  to 
decide  what  was  their  proper  jurisdiction. 
It  was  not  till  1760  that  a  joint  committee 


THE  MEETING-HOUSES  65 

from  the  East  Greenwich  meeting  and  the 
South  Kingstown  meeting  finally  made  the 
report  "  that  each  may  know  which  are  their 
proper  members."  The  South  Kingstown 
meeting  bounds  were  to  begin  at  Bissell's 
Mills  on  the  north.  This  is  now  called 
Hamilton  Mills,  and  lies  on  the  shore  near 
Wickford.  From  thence  the  boundary  ran 
"  to  the  Highway  that  leads  westward  to 
the  house  where  Robert  Eldrish  formerly 
lived,  thence  by  Said  Highway  to  the  Cross 
Highway  by  Nicholas  Gardner's,  thence  a 
strait  line  to  Boon's  house,  upon  black 
plain,  thence  to  the  Highway  in  narrow 
Laine  by  James  Reynolds  &  by  said  High- 
way to  the  Colony  Line." l  Black  Plain 
and  Narrow  Lane  have  passed  from  remem- 
brance, and  the  houses  of  these  worthy 
men  know  them  no  more ;  but  in  a  gen- 
eral way  it  is  safe  to  say  that  the  South 
Kingstown  meeting  included  the  whole 
of  Washington  County,  and  a  portion  of 
what  is  now  Connecticut,  since  Stoning- 
ton  was  evidently  included  within  its  lim- 
its. 

Almost   the   first   business  which  came 
before  the  meeting  in  the  first  year  of  its 

1  Vol.  i.  p.  104. 


66     NARRAGANSETT  FRIENDS'  MEETING 

existence  was  the  "  matter  of  building  a 
meeting  house  in  the  north  west  part  of 
Westerly."  The  "Lower  part  of  West- 
erly "  also  desired  a  meeting-house,  one 
meeting-house  to  be  ten  miles  distant  from 
the  other.  At  a  meeting  held  in  Charles- 
town,  the  29th  of  6th  month,  1 743,  a  com- 
mittee report  on  the  size  of  the  lower  meet- 
ing-house. They  recommend  a  "  Houfe  of 
Eighteen  feet  one  way  and  26  feet  another 
way  and  about  9  or  ten  feet  Stud  and  about 
£200  money  they  think  will  accomplifh 
sd  Houfe."1  A  few  months  later  Peter 
Davis,  his  sons  William,  and  Peter  Davis, 
Jr.,  were  appointed  "  to  fe  to  the  Carrying 
on  of  Said  Building." 

At  first  sight  this  seems  a  great  sum  to 
pay  for  a  little  building  of  eighteen  by 
twenty-six  feet.  But  the  currency  was  enor- 
mously depreciated.  In  1740  it  required 
twenty-seven  shillings  in  bills  to  equal  an 
ounce  of  silver,  whose  normal  rate  of  ex- 
change in  the  same  year  was  six  shillings 
ninepence.2  So  that  the  inflation  was  ex- 
actly four  hundred  per  cent.,  and  to  get  an 

1  Vol.  i.  p.  2. 

2  Weeden,  Economic  and  Social  History  of  New  Eng- 
land^ chap.  xiii. ;  /?.  /.  Historical  Tracts,  No.  8,  p.  55. 


THE  MEETING-HOUSES  67 

idea  of  true  value  the  two  hundred  pounds 
must  become  fifty.  All  the  prices  men- 
tioned must  be  reduced  as  much  or  more, 
for  the  currency  went  on  depreciating,  until 
at  last,  in  1781,  one  Spanish  milled  dollar 
was  equal  to  sixteen  hundred  dollars  in 
paper ! 

The  independent  existence  of  the  meet- 
ing seems  to  have  acted  as  a  stimulus  in 
building  houses  of  worship.  It  was  soon 
under  consideration  to  build  a  meeting- 
house in  the  southwest  part  of  South 
Kingstown.  A  committee  was  appointed 
in  1 748  to  conclude  "  where  to  fet  the 
meeting  houfe  they  are  about  to  build." 
Two  Perrys,  James  and  Benjamin,  with 
three  other  Friends,  were  appointed,  but 
the  next  month  the  proposal  was  "  Dropt 
for  the  prefent."  Friends  doubtless  had 
enough  on  hand  at  the  moment,  for  the 
upper  meeting-house  at  Westerly  was  re- 
ported "  not  yet  fit  to  meet  in  in  cold 
weather,  and  all  the  money  spent."  It  was 
recommended  to  quarterly  meeting  for  as- 
sistance. But  the  need  of  a  house  of  wor- 
ship was  evidently  great,  for  a  Friend  is 
dealt  with  for  "  suffering  Friends  to  be  dis- 
orderly Impofed  upon  in  their  public  meet- 


68     NARRAGANSETT  FRIENDS*  MEETING 

ing  at  his   houfe,  and   he  not  forbid  the 
diforder."  l 

So  the  heart  of  James  Perry  was  evi- 
dently moved,  for  in  1750  he  conveyed  a 
piece  of  land  by  deed  to  the  meeting  "  to 
and  for  the  ufe  of  ffriends  to  fet  a  Meeting 
houfe  on,  and  for  a  burying  Ground."  The 
meeting  agreed  to  fence  the  ground,  and  a 
committee  was  appointed  to  place  the  house 
and  fix  the  size.  The  house  was  to  be  some- 
what larger  than  the  Westerly  lower  meet- 
ing-house built  a  few  years  ago.  This  was 
thirty-two  by  twenty-four  feet,  "  and  9  foot 
and  a  half  poft,"  but  the  "  cofl  they  fuppofe 
will  be  about  ^750!"  So  in  seven  years 
the  cost  for  a  building  only  one  third  larger 
increased  three  and  one  half  times.  This 
little  meeting-house  stood  long  in  the  "  hill 
country  "  in  Matunuck,  back  from  the  high- 
way to  the  west  of  the  road.  Of  late  years 
it  was  surrounded  by  huckleberry  pastures, 
whose  rich  russet  red  in  the  early  autumn 
made  a  fitting  setting  for  the  venerable 
structure.  To  it  a  little  company  of  wor- 
shipers gathered  each  year  on  a  summer 
First  Day.  Here  again  was  heard  the  sound 
of  prayer  and  exhortation ;  and  if  the  melody 

1  Vol.  i.  p.  30. 


THE  MEETING-HOUSES  69 

of  hymns  floated  from  its  trembling  win- 
dows, it  shocked  no  listening  Friends,  for 
the  preacher  who  held  the  service  was  that 
friend  of  humanity  who  has  banded  his 
brethren  together  "  in  His  Name."  By  the 
pious  care  of  several  of  these  summer  pil- 
grims, the  little  building  was  preserved 
until  a  very  few  years  ago.  One  summer 
when  they  returned  from  a  winter's  absence 
they  found  it  a  heap  of  rubbish ! 

In  spite  of  the  disordered  state  of  the 
currency,  Friends  kept  on  building ;  and  in 
1753  Richmond  wished  a  meeting-house, 
to  be  built  on  the  highway  which  leads 
from  John  Knowles's  to  Mumford's  Mills. 
The  dimensions  were  of  what  appears  to 
have  been  the  usual  size,  thirty-two  by 
twenty-four  feet,  "  and  of  a  height  for  a  con- 
venient Galarie"  the  record  adds.  Four 
hundred  and  eighty-eight  pounds  were  im- 
mediately subscribed,  and  the  matter  was 
referred  to  quarterly  meeting.  This  house 
finally  cost  -£824  5^-  5^-»  as  the  completed 
account  shows.  Only  ^727  i8s.  6d.  were 
received  when  the  account  was  rendered, 
"  fo  that  there  remains  due  to  the  under- 
takers ^96  6s.  nd.,  —  and  there  is  £i 6  is. 
6d.  of  the  fubfcriptions  unpaid."  It  stood 


70     NARRAGANSETT  FRIENDS1  MEETING 

within  the  limits  of  the  town  of  Richmond, 
from  which  it  took  its  name,  to  the  west  of 
Kingston,  somewhat  south  of  the  present 
village  of  Usquepaug.  The  highway  still 
exists  as  a  quiet  country  road,  and,  driv- 
ing westward  from  Kingston  Depot,  to  the 
right  lies  a  little  knoll,  now  bare  and  de- 
serted, save  for  a  few  moss-grown  stones 
which  guard  the  resting-places  of  the  dead. 
Here  the  meeting-house  was  built.  The 
quiet  country  stretches  in  soft  undulations 
about  it.  The  farms  are  now  almost  de- 
serted ;  here  and  there  a  column  of  smoke 
rising  from  a  group  of  old  apple-trees  marks 
a  household.  A  few  stately  avenues  of  old 
trees  between  moss-grown  walls  lead  to 
dilapidated  buildings  which  once  were  fine 
mansions.  A  feeling  of  autumn  creeps  into 
even  spring-time  air,  as  of  a  land  that  has 
passed  its  vigorous  youth,  and  lies  basking 
tranquilly  after  days  of  achievement.  Or  is 
it  waiting  the  coming  of  some  hero  of  ro- 
mance to  wake  this  sleeping  beauty,  and 
once  again  fill  the  fields,  now  so  desolate, 
with  activity  and  life  ? 

In  the  days  of  the  Friends'  meeting, 
it  was  a  busy  centre.  Around  the  place 
of  gathering  stretched  the  fields  of  the 


THE  MEETING-HOUSES  Jl 

Hoxsies,  Solomon  and  Stephen,  both  men  of 
mark  and  influence  in  the  meeting.  Here 
the  business  of  the  Friends'  meetings  was 
transacted,  alternating  with  those  on  Tower 
Hill  and  in  the  Westerly  meeting-house.  It 
happens  that  much  of  the  important  busi- 
ness we  shall  review  occurred  here.  Here 
the  first  protest  against  slavery  was  made, 
and  here  some  of  the  most  influential  of 
the  members  were  brought  to  account  for 
delinquencies. 

Beside  building  its  own  meeting-houses, 
the  South  Kingstown  meeting  contributed 
to  others,  as  it  in  turn  also  received  contri- 
bution. Warwick,  Dartmouth,  and  Provi- 
dence each  had  contributions  in  the  early 
days  of  the  meeting.  South  Kingstown 
was  the  richest  town  in  the  colony  about 
the  middle  of  the  century,  and  it  is  natural 
to  find  Friends  contributing  considerable 
sums.  But,  while  Friends  were  generous, 
they  were  thrifty.  After  having  contributed 
seventy-two  pounds  fifteen  shillings  toward 
various  meeting-houses,  especially  the  meet- 
ing-house at  Providence,  comes  the  entry : 

"  This  meeting  do  not  find  freedom  to 
contribute  any  more  till  they  are  Satisfied 
the  augmenting  of  the  firft  fum  which  was 


?2     NARRAGANSETT  FRIEND  &  MEETING 

Requefted  is  not  by  unneceffary  coft."1 
And  at  another  time,  when  the  epistle  from 
quarterly  meeting  was  "  read  and  kindly 
excepted,"  as  the  good  clerk  wrote  it,  it  was 
quite  literally  true ;  for  "  as  to  the  requeft 
in  the  Epiflle  from  the  Laft  Quarterly 
Meeting  for  Affiflance  in  Difcharging  the 
Coft  ffriends  have  been  at  about  their 
meeting  houfe  in  Smithfield  we  at  pre- 
fent  Defire  to  be  excufed  for  we  are  about 
Repairing  our  Meeting  houfe  in  S°  Kings- 
town." 2 

The  meeting-houses  needed  continual  re- 
pairs, and  committees  are  appointed  to  "flop 
ye  leak  in  ye  old  meeting  houfe,"  or  to  see 
to  the  windows  and  small  repairs,  frequently. 
It  was  before  the  days  of  stoves,  and  in  the 
long  intervals  of  silent  meditation  the  cold 
must  have  been  intense. 

New  England  Friends  were  mindful  of 
the  sufferings  of  Friends  in  England,  and 
in  1752  the  meeting  sent  ^40  14^.  by  its 
treasurer,  to  be  taken  to  the  next  quar- 
terly meeting  to  forward  to  London.  The 
treasurer  had  a  difficult  task  with  his  ac- 
counts in  the  variable  currency,  of  which 
the  following  entry  is  an  example  :  — 

1  Vol.  i.  p.  97.  2  Ibid.  p.  35. 


THE  MEETING-HOUSES  73 

It  appears    by   the   Records    of    our 
Monthly    Meeting   the   27   of   ye   Fifth 
Month,  1747,  that  there  is  of  the  meet- 
ing's money  in  the  hands  of  Peter  Davis 
the  sum  of  ^"16.16.6  that  after  the  Dis- 
count of  ^"13.7  there  remains  a  Balance 
yet  due  to  the  meeting  of  ^3.9. 6.1 
Beside    the    meetings   in    the    meeting- 
houses, youths'  meetings  were  appointed : 
one  at  Westerly  lower  meeting-house  was 
to  be  held  in  the  seventh  month,  "  a  second 
day,  after  the  first  day."     Another  was  held 
at  William  Gifford's,  in  Charlestown,  in  the 
2d  month ;    a  third,  in   the   old   meeting- 
house, on  a  fifth  day  in  the  seventh  month 
following  the  second-day  meeting  at  Wes- 
terly ;  and  at  Westerly  upper  meeting-house 
in  the  second  month  again.2 

So  the  meeting  was  fully  established  with 
its  five  houses  of  worship.  First  in  impor- 
tance was  the  old  meeting-house  on  Tower 
Hill,  built  on  Thomas  Hazard's  land,  which 
for  a  nominal  consideration  he  sold  to 
Ebenezer  Slocum  in  1710,  who  in  his  turn 
transferred  it  to  certain  trustees  the  next 
day  for  the  same  consideration.  Then  came 
the  two  Westerly  houses,  the  meeting-house 

1  Vol.  i.  p.  1 1 1.  *  Ibid,  p.  40. 


74     NARRAGANSETT  FRIENDS^  MEETING 

on  James  Perry's  land  in  Matunuck  and 
the  Richmond  meeting-house.  What  the 
work  of  the  meeting  was,  and  what  manner 
of  men  did  it,  the  following  pages  will  en- 
deavor to  show. 


IV 

THE  CLERKS  OF  THE  MEETING 


IV 


THE  records  of  the  South  Kingstown 
Friends  begin  in  a  small,  square  hand,  with 
Friends  spelled  with  a  double  f,  and  words 
written  as  the  South  County  speech  pro- 
nounced them,  and  our  interest  is  naturally 
excited  to  know  something  of  the  man  who 
wrote  them.  It  does  not  appear  from  the 
first  record  who  he  was,  but  a  subsequent 
entry  shows  him  to  have  been  "  our  ancient 
friend,  Peter  Davis."  He  was  a  South 
County  man,  living  near  Westerly,  who 
had  been  prominent  in  the  East  Greenwich 
meeting.  Among  the  first  duties  that  he 
performed  for  the  new  meeting  was  to  "  fe 
to  the  carrying  on  "  of  Westerly  lower  meet- 
ing-house, in  which  his  two  sons  were  ap- 
pointed to  assist  him.  In  1747,  on  the  27th 
of  the  2d  month,  he  "  Laid  before  this  meet- 
ing that  there  hath  been  a  concern  on  his 
Mind  for  some  time  to  Vifit  ffriends  in  the 
Weftern  parts,  and  allfo  in  Europe  if  the 
way  mould  open  for  him.  And  defired  a 
few  Lines  of  ffriends  Unity  therein."  This 


78     NARRAGANSETT  FRIENDS  MEETING 

proposal  was  considered  by  the   meeting, 
and   two  months   later   action   was   taken 
upon  it,  and  the  minute  is  entered  by  Peter 
Davis  himself :  — 
ist  4th  Mo  1747 

Whereas   our  ffriend  Peter  Davis   is 
Likely  to  move  from  us  for  fome  time  this 
Meeting  confidered  to  Choofe  and  ap- 
point our  ffriend,  Stephen  Hoxfie  to  fill 
his  Room  in  the  Service  of  Clerk  to  this 
Meeting.     Two  certificates  for  our  An- 
tiant  Friend,  Peter  Davis,  one  for  Long 
Ifland,  penfalvenia   And   ye  Jerfes   and 
Verginia  &ct  Maryland  &ct,  one  for  the 
Ifland  of  Great  Brittian  was  both  writ 
and  Signed  in  this  meeting. 
What  a  journey  for  a  country  Friend  to 
set  out  upon !     He  calls  himself  an  "  An- 
tiant  Friend  "  already  in  1747,  when  he  was 
about  to  undertake  it,  though  this  ftiust  have 
been  an  honorary  title  if  the  record  is  cor- 
rect, which  places  his  birth  in  1712,  which 
would  make  him  only  thirty-five  years  old. 
It  is  possible  there  is  some  mistake  in  this 
entry,  as  he  lived  to  a  great  age,  though 
the  record  is  explicit.     He  performed  his 
duties  to  the  last,  filling  twenty-five  of  the 
large  folio  pages  with   closely  written  re- 


THE  CLERKS  OF  THE  MEETING       79 

cords,  and  on  the  2Qth  of  4th  month,  1747, 
comes  his  last  entry,  "  This  Meeting 
Ended."  One  reads  it  with  something  of 
what  must  have  been  his  own  feeling  of 
solemnity  at  quitting  home  and  kindred. 
His  rule  as  a  clerk  was  evidently  not  a 
very  rigid  one,  for  on  an  occasion  "  the 
minits  of  the  Lafl  Monthly  Meeting  not 
happining  to  be  at  hand  it  was  Remem- 


In  the  spring  of  1747,  Peter  Davis  set 
out  on  his  travels,  and  certificates  as  to  his 
preaching  were  received  by  the  home  meet- 
ing. The  first  one  is  dated  from  Nine 
Partners,  or,  as  it  was  often  called,  The  Ob- 
long, in  the  Province  of  New  York.  This 
is  back  of  Poughkeepsie,  on  the  Hudson, 
and  for  many  years  was  the  seat  of  a  famous 
school  under  the  government  of  Friends. 
Peter  Davis  preached  there  in  May,  1747. 
The  next  month  found  him  in  the  "  pur- 
chase of  Westchester."  Woodbridge,  in 
New  Jersey,  Maryland,  Flushing,  Long  Is- 
land, and  Philadelphia  were  visited  in  turn, 
and  the  certificates  received,  "  Which  was 
all  Read  in  this  meeting  to  Good  satisfac- 
tion." l  One  wonders  what  his  special  gift 
1  Vol.  i.  p.  36. 


80     NARRAGANSETT  FRIENDS'   MEETING 

was,  and  what  aspect  of  truth  he  loved  to 
preach.  The  way  opened  before  him,  for 
after  a  sojourn  in  Philadelphia  in  the  au- 
tumn of  1747,  he  sends  a  certificate  from 
London,  dated  22d  of  3d  month,  1748.  No 
comment  is  made  upon  this  in  the  orderly 
records.  There  is  an  interval  of  six  months 
between  the  Philadelphia  certificate  and  the 
one  from  London.  How  long  a  time  was 
he  upon  the  water,  one  wonders  ?  and  what 
reception  did  a  Rhode  Island  Friend  meet 
with  in  London  ?  The  records  give  no 
indication,  but  the  meeting  must  have  been 
stirred  and  stimulated  by  the  fact  of  its 
own  approved  minister  carrying  his  testi- 
mony and  his  gifts  so  far.  In  1751  he  was 
evidently  back  again,  for  certificates  from 
The  Oblong,  Westbury  on  Long  Island, 
and  from  the  Purchase  in  the  Province  of 
New  York,  were  received.  Again,  in  1759, 
it  is  recorded  that  "  our  Ancient  Friend, 
Peter  Davis  &  John  Collins  hath  a  concern 
on  their  minds  to  vifit  Friends  in  the  West- 
ern parts."  He  was  evidently  a  man  of 
influence  in  the  society,  especially  where 
any  question  of  doctrine  was  involved,  and 
was  constantly  on  committees  to  deal  with 
offenders  against  the  simplicity  of  Friends. 


THE   CLERKS  OF  THE  MEETING       8 1 

He  lived  to  a  great  age,  and  was  twice  mar- 
ried. Content  Davis  was  his  first  wife,  a 
woman  of  much  influence  in  the  women's 
meeting.  She  died  in  1781,  and  he  mar- 
ried his  second  wife,  Martha.  She  "  de- 
parted this  Life  the  i2th  day  of  the  4th 
Mo  1809  and  was  buried  the  i4th  in 
Friends  burying  ground  in  Richmond, 
aged  eighty-eight  years."  A  year  before 
her  death  the  meeting  took  charge  of  its 
aged  minister,  and  a  paper  exists  specifying 
the  food  and  clothing  the  aged  couple  were 
to  have.1  He  lived  three  years  longer,  and 
died  in  1812,  "aged  one  hundred  years, 
eleven  months  and  five  days,"  and  was 
buried  in  the  Richmond  burying-ground. 

A  story  is  told  of  Peter  Davis  by  the 
present  clerk  of  the  meeting,  who  in  his 
youth  knew  an  aged  man  who  was  his 
friend.  He  was  vigorous  in  mind  and  body, 
enjoying  life  to  the  last.  Upon  one  occa- 
sion he  was  riding  along  the  Matunuck 
road,  erect  as  usual,  and  a  party  of  younger 
friends  followed.  Thinking  him  out  of 
hearing,  they  discussed  his  great  age,  say- 
ing they  would  not  like  to  live  so  long. 
The  old  man  turned  in  his  saddle  and  said 

1  Appendix,  p.  190. 


82     NARRAGANSETT  FRIEND?  MEETING 

gently,  "  Boys,  it  is  sweet  to  live;  I  love  life." 
And  surely  he  had  had  great  experience 
of  life.  Not  only  had  he  more  years  than 
any  other  Friend  who  is  mentioned,  but  his 
travels  and  his  preaching  had  made  them 
full  years.  He  enforced  the  discipline  of 
the  meeting,  and  the  meeting  was  stringent 
with  him.  On  the  occasion  of  one  of  his 
religious  journeys,  a  committee  was  ap- 
pointed to  inquire  into  his  conversation  and 
report  upon  it.  They  "find  things  clear 
concerning  Peter  Davis.  All  accept  his 
Setting  out  on  his  Jorney  before  he  had 
a  Certificate."  Thus  even  so  influential  a 
Friend  was  kept  to  the  letter  of  the  law. 

Stephen  Hoxsie,  as  already  noticed,  was 
chosen  to  succeed  Peter  Davis  when  the 
latter  set  out  on  his  travels.  His  first  en- 
try, the  record  of  the  meeting  held  the  2  7th 
of  5th  month,  1747,  is  a  great  contrast  to 
Peter  Davis's  crabbed  hand.  Peter  Davis 
evidently  had  modeled  his  writing  after  the 
engrossing  hand  of  the  scribe  of  the  day. 
It  was  small  and  square,  and  lacked  the 
evenness  and  finish  which  gave  the  clerkly 
hand  of  the  period  its  character.  Stephen 
Hoxsie  begins  in  a  good,  flowing  hand,  and 
with  more  modern  ideas  of  spelling,  though 


THE   CLERKS  OF  THE  MEETING        83 

that  retains  its  "freedom  from  inforce- 
ment "  as  boldly  as  the  consciences  of  the 
founders.  South  County  speech,  to  this 
day,  speaks  of  a  convenant  place  of  meeting, 
and  so  the  books  record  it.  "  Accept "  was 
always  an  occasion  of  stumbling,  the  quar- 
terly meeting  epistles  being  generally  ex- 
cepted,  while  genuine  "  exception  "  is  often 
"  accepted."  But  the  improvement  is  great 
in  the  fullness  and  accuracy  with  which  the 
record  was  kept.  It  is  a  neat-looking  re- 
cord, and  for  twenty-seven  years  was  written 
by  the  same  hand.  Stephen  Hoxsie,  and 
Elizabeth  his  wife,  lived  not  far  from  the 
Richmond  meeting-house.  They  had  eleven 
children,  and  it  was  not  till  a  few  months 
after  her  death,  in  the  autumn  of  1773,  that 
he  resigned  his  clerkship.  It  is  his  hand 
that  records  dealing  with  debtors,  with  "dis- 
orderly walkers,"  and  notes  the  proposals  of 
marriage  between  young  Friends.  He  was 
often  on  committees  himself  to  inquire  into 
difficult  cases,  and  was  evidently  a  man  of 
weight  and  influence  in  the  meeting.  He 
"  Departed  this  life,"  the  record  says,  "  the 
24th  Day  of  the  ioth  Month  1 793,"  within  one 
day  of  twenty  years  from  the  day  of  his 
wife's  death,  "  and  Was  buryed  in  friends 


84     NARRAGANSETT  FRIENDS*  MEETING 

burying  Ground  at  Richmond  the  27  of 
the  Same,  after  a  Solid  Meeting  of  friends 
and  others  aged  80  years  &  26  Days." 

This  faithful  clerk  of  the  meeting  was 
succeeded  in  1774  by  Peleg  Peckham.1  If 
Stephen  Hoxsie  was  an  improvement  on 
the  first  clerk,  this  third  clerk  was  an  ad- 
vance on  Stephen  Hoxsie.  The  handwrit- 
ing has  the  same  general  character,  but  is 
clearer  and  firmer,  an  excellent  hand,  very 
legible  and  distinct.  The  page  has  a  schol- 
arly air,  and  the  spelling  conforms  to  mod- 
ern requirements.  The  use  of  capitals 
continues  in  unexpected  places,  but  the 
whole  record  bespeaks  a  man  of  better  edu- 
cation. The  period  of  the  work  of  this 
clerk  covered  the  final  dealings  on  the  ques- 
tion of  slavery,  and  the  whole  period  of  the 
Revolution.  With  Peleg  Peckham  Thomas 
Hazard  was  closely  associated.  In  1775 
Thomas  Hazard  and  Peleg  Peckham  were 
appointed  "  to  Collect  the  Several  Rules  or 
Minutes  of  the  yearly  meeting  Tranfmitted 
to  us  by  Epiftles  or  other  ways  &  to  record 
them  in  the  Book  of  Difcipline  under  their 
Proper  Heads." 2  This  was  in  the  first  year 
of  Peleg  Peckham's  service,  and  all  through 

1Vol.  ii.  p.  1 6.  *Ibid.v  5*- 


THE   CLERKS  OF  THE  MEETING        85 

this  period,  frequently  at  the  end  of  a  meet- 
ing, comes  the  signature,  "  Thos  Hazard 
Clerk  this  Time."  I  have  been  in  much 
doubt  as  to  whether  Thomas  Hazard,  who 
was  "  College  Tom,"  made  these  entries 
himself.  Careful  comparison  with  manu- 
script known  to  be  his  would  lead  to  the 
conclusion  that  it  was.  He  had  an  odd 
way  of  writing  the  "  s,"  in  the  abbreviation 
of  Thomas,  high  up,  close  to  the  beginning 
of  the  "  H  "  in  Hazard.  Either  these  are 
his  signatures,  or  his  friend  Peleg  Peckham 
closely  imitated  his  method.  Another  cir- 
cumstance which  would  seem  to  indicate 
that  the  entries  are  in  Thomas  Hazard's 
hand  is  the  fact  that  very  frequently,  in  a  list 
of  names  of  a  committee,  his  own  name 
appears  last.  The  first  hundred  and  fifty 
pages  of  the  second  volume  of  records,  cov- 
ering only  seven  years,  appears  to  be  in  the 
same  hand ;  if  by  both  Peleg  Peckham  and 
Thomas  Hazard,  the  resemblance  is  very 
remarkable.  Nailor  Tom  Hazard  records 
in  1781,  "  Cousin  Hazard  had  a  fit  coming 
from  the  mill,"  and  it  is  in  that  year  that 
this  handwriting  stops  in  the  middle  of  a 
sentence. 

Thomas   Hazard  was  the  eldest  son  of 


86     NARRAGANSETT  FRIENDS'  MEETING 

Robert  Hazard  and  Sarah  Borden  his  wife. 
His  mother  belonged  to  the  meeting,  but  I 
have  found  no  evidence  that  his  father  did. 
He  received  a  good  education,  and  from  the 
fact  of  his  attending  the  college  at  New 
Haven  he  derived  his  nickname  of  College 
Tom.  He  was  early  exercised  on  behalf  of 
the  slaves,  and  refused  to  work  his  farm 
with  slave  labor.  He  related  the  occasion 
of  his  first  turning  his  thoughts  to  the  sub- 
ject. In  one  of  the  hot  summer  days  be- 
tween his  college  terms,  his  father  sent  him 
into  the  field  to  oversee  the  haying.  Find- 
ing the  sun  intolerable,  he  lay  down  under 
a  tree  and  took  a  book  from  his  pocket. 
But  it  was  too  hot  to  read,  and  he  lay 
watching  the  negroes  at  work.  The  situa- 
tion suddenly  struck  him.  If  it  was  too 
hot  even  to  read  in  the  shade,  what  right 
had  he  to  keep  men  at  work  in  the  sun  ? 
From  that  moment  his  thoughts  were 
turned  toward  the  evils  of  slavery,  and  when 
a  little  later  he  heard  the  stern  denuncia- 
tion of  the  Connecticut  deacon  his  con- 
science was  fully  aroused.  "  Quakers ! "  said 
the  deacon, "  they  are  not  Chriftian  people ; 
they  hold  their  fellow-men  in  flavery." 
Thomas  Hazard  was  a  young  fellow  just 


THE  CLERKS  OF  THE  MEETING       8/ 

of  age,  and  on  the  point  of  being  marriedf 
when  these  words  were  said  to  him.  He 
gave  up  his  worldly  prospects,  worked  his 
farm  with  free  labor,  and  became  a  zealous 
advocate  of  emancipation.  His  long  and 
useful  life  has  been  detailed  elsewhere,1  but 
in  any  mention  of  Narragansett  Friends  of 
the  eighteenth  century  he  must  hold  a  con- 
spicuous place. 

Solomon  Hoxsie,  a  brother  of  Stephen 
Hoxsie  the  clerk,  was  also  a  man  of  mark, 
often  intrusted  with  business  for  the  meet- 
ing. He  is  called  of  Richmond,  and  when 
he  died,  in  1781,  "was  decently  interred  in 
his  own  Burying  ground  near  his  houfe." 

John  Collins  was  a  traveling  Friend  who 
belonged  to  the  meeting.  He  sometimes 
accompanied  Peter  Davis  on  his  shorter 
journeys,  and  several  times  the  record 
comes  that  he  "  hath  it  on  his  mind  to 
vifit  ffriends  at  Oblong."  Robarts  Knowles 
was  the  Friend  who  traveled  with  Peter 
Davis  on  his  extended  journey  before  he 
sailed  for  England.  A  Robert  Knowles 
was  under  dealing  for  debt  not  long  after, 
and  one  wonders  if  it  was  the  same  Friend, 

1  Thomas  Hazard,  son  of  Robert,  called  College  Tom. 
By  Caroline  Hazard.     Houghton,  Mifflin  &  Co. 


88     NARRAGANSETT  FRIENDS1  MEETING 

and  if,  in  his  concern  for  the  good  of 
the  meeting,  he  neglected  his  "  outward 
affairs." 

Friends  were  truly  watchful  over  each 
other  for  good.  The  most  prominent  men 
in  the  meeting  were  chosen  visitors,  and 
overseers  of  the  meeting.  The  Queries  were 
sent  to  each  meeting  from  the  quarterly 
meeting,  and  were  not  only  read  in  public 
meetings  but  in  the  houses  of  Friends.  They 
were  a  list  of  questions  as  to  the  life  and 
conduct  of  the  members.  Friends  were  ad- 
vised "  againfl  running  into  employment 
they  have  no  knowledge  or  experience  of, 
but  to  employ  themfelves  in  that  bufmess 
they  were  acquainted  with."  Their  apparel, 
furniture,  table,  and  way  of  living  was  under 
the  observation  of  the  overseers.  Nor  were 
the  ministers  and  elders  exempt  from  such 
supervision,  but  they  were  exhorted  to  have 
a  watchful  care  for  each  other. 

In  1755  the  scope  of  the  overseers  was 
defined  when  it  was 

agreed  by  this  meeting  that  for  the  future 
the  vifitors  of  each  meeting  Do  vifit  the 
families  of  such  who  were  married  among 
Friends  that  have  not  cut  themfelves  off 
by  Transgreffion,  those  who  are  the  chil- 


THE  CLERKS  OF  THE  MEETING       89 

dren  of  ffriends,  and  read  the  Queries  to 
them.  And  fuch  who  are  willing  to  be 
in  the  obfervation  of  fuch  Queries,  and 
have  a  Defire  to  be  under  the  care  of 
friends  in  order  that  the  monthly  meet- 
ing may  have  a  Right  Sence  of  the  con- 
duct of  all  Such  :  and  take  proper  meth- 
ods to  Deal  timely  with  fuch  who  walk 
Diforderly.1 

A  little  later,  in  1761,  Thomas  Wilbour, 
Thomas  Hazard,  and  Stephen  Hoxsie  re- 
port still  further  on  the  duties  of  over- 
seers:— 

It  is  our  Judgement  that  every  par- 
ticular contained  in  the  Queries  now  in 
ufe  in  faid  Monthly  Meetings  may  with 
propriety  be  committed  to  the  charge 
and  care  of  faid  overfeers  together  with 
all  other  Rules  of  Moral  and  Religious 
Conduct  that  are  or  mall  be  hereafter 
thought  neceffary  by  faid  Monthly  Meet- 
ing and  recommended  to  their  overfight 
fo  far  as  they  do  or  may  relate  to  the 
Week  Day  and  Firfl  Day  Meetings  and 
their  Members.2 

Still  later  the  overseers  were  to  take  no- 
tice of  "diforders  committed  by  members, 

1  Vol.  i.  p.  69.  2  Ibid.  p.  122. 


90     NARRAGANSETT  FRIENDS'  MEETING 

viz. :  Sleping  and  all  other  indecencies," 
and  the  omission  of  members  to  attend  all 
meetings. 

The  Queries  were  reported  upon  from 
month  to  month.  In  1754  the  visitors  re- 
port "  in  fome  places  Indifferent  well,  but 
many  places  according  to  our  Underftand- 
ing  too  much  Indifferency  in  Regarding 
the  good  order  which  ought  to  be  kept  up 
amongft  us  for  which  they  Laboured  in  the 
ability  they  Received  for  Amendment." ] 

A  little  later,  "  where  there  was  a  De- 
ficiency they  generally  gave  Incouragement 
of  a  Regulation."  The  Queries  were  also 
read  in  meeting,  "  and  friends  gave  anfwers 
thereto  as  proper  as  they  were  Capable  of 
at  prefent." 

The  meeting  was  not  afraid  to  take  up 
grave  questions.  The  question  of  slavery 
stirred  it  deeply;  temperance  was  already 
a  question  of  the  day  ;  education  received 
attention.  One  question,  which  was  a  ques- 
tion in  England  until  very  recently,  came 
up  in  1771,  —  the  question  of  marrying 
a  deceased  wife's  sister.2  A  minute  was 
framed  to  ask  advice  upon  it  in  1772  :  — 
Query  to  be  able  to  marry  a  deceafed 

1  Vol.  i.  p.  63.  a  Ibid.  p.  245. 


THE  CLERKS  OF  THE  MEETING       91 

wife's  Mer  or  deceafed  Hufband's  Bro- 
ther and  what  is  neceffary  to  be  done  in 
fuch  cafes  ? 1 

The  system  of  overseers  kept  the  meet- 
ing closely  bound  together,  where  "  too 
much  indifferency  "  did  not  prevail.  The 
most  solid  men  of  the  meeting  were  ap- 
pointed for  this  service.  The  Hoxsies, 
Stephen  and  Solomon,  Peter  Davis,  and 
his  companion  John  Collins,  and  Thomas 
Hazard,  all  went  from  house  to  house  visit- 
ing Friends  under  the  care  of  the  meeting. 
A  touch  of  human  nature  doubtless  crept 
in  on  some  of  these  occasions,  and  the 
formal  reports  in  the  records  must  some- 
times have  had  their  origin  in  neighbor- 
hood gossip.  But  life  was  taken  seriously, 
and  the  daily  walk  and  conversation  of 
Friends  was  under  close  observation.  In 
a  time  of  general  laxity,  and  in  a  new  and 
partly  settled  country,  the  orderly  rule  of 
Friends  made  for  that  righteousness  which 
"  exalteth  the  nation."  It  may  be  that  the 
overseers  were  at  times  actuated  by  very 
human  motives,  that  the  quiet  country  life 
fostered  curiosity.  A  sense  of  spiritual 
pride  in  those  so  honored  may  have  crept 

1  Vol.  i.  p.  267. 


92     NARRAGANSETT  FRIENDS'  MEETING 

in,  yet  these  Friends  recognized  that  their 
own  will  was  naught ;  they  depended  upon 
the  Light  of  Truth,  which  they  earnestly 
sought,  and,  in  the  beautiful  phrase  of  their 
clerk,  they  "  labored  with  the  ability  they 
have  received." 


V 

THE    WORK   OF    THE    MEETING 


V 


THE  meeting  in  South  Kingstown,  though 
probably  the  oldest  association  for  worship, 
was  by  no  means  the  only  one.  As  early 
as  1668,  the  Pettaquamscut  purchasers  set 
aside  three  hundred  acres  of  land,  "  to  be 
laid  out  and  forever  fet  apart  as  an  en- 
couragement, the  income  or  improvement 
thereof  wholly  for  an  Orthodox  perfon  that 
fhall  be  obtained  to  preach  God's  word  to 
the  Inhabitants."  The  church  which  was 
supported  from  this  foundation  had  teach- 
ers at  the  end  of  the  century,  but  it  was 
not  till  1732  that  the  Rev.  Samuel  Niles 
came,  who  is  called  the  "  firft  incumbent 
of  ordination." 

These  ministerial  lands  were  the  cause 
of  a  long  lawsuit,  for  the  "orthodox  per- 
son," for  whose  benefit  the  deed  was  made, 
was  held  by  Dr.  McSparran,  the  missionary 
of  the  Church  of  England,  to  be  no  other 
than  himself.  Dr.  McSparran  arrived  in 
1719,  and  was  active  and  zealous  for  many 
years.  His  Church  of  St.  Paul's  stood  in 


g6    NARRAGANSETT  FRIENDS^  MEETING 

the  village  of  Tower  Hill,  on  the  highway 
leading  to  the  ferry.  Dr.  Torrey's  church, 
which  finally  obtained  the  title  to  the  min- 
isterial lands,  stood  on  the  corner  of  the 
Queen's  high  road  and  the  ferry  road.  The 
court-house  was  almost  opposite  it;  and 
from  this  centre,  in  the  early  part  of  the 
eighteenth  century,  the  life  of  the  country- 
side spread.  These  two  churches  are  con- 
tinued in  Narragansett.  The  court-house 
was  moved  to  Kingstown  in  1754.  Dr. 
Torrey's  church  followed,  and  has  become 
the  First  Congregational  Church  at  Kings- 
ton. Dr.  McSparren's  St.  Paul's  Church 
was  moved  to  a  site  a  few  miles  north  of 
the  village,  and  later  to  Wickford,  where 
the  building  in  which  he  preached  is  still 
preserved.  The  Church  of  the  Ascension 
in  Wakefield  is  its  South  Kingstown  de- 
scendant. Beside  these  two  established 
churches  at  the  time  of  the  establishment 
of  the  meeting,  there  were  all  sorts  of  minor 
sects.  Beside  Quakers  and  Baptists,  Mr. 
Fayerweather  says,  "  Fanatics,  Ranters, 
Deifts,  and  Infidels  fwarm  in  that  part  of 
the  world,"  and  Dr.  McSparran  bewails  the 
"  hetrodox  and  different  opinions  in  re- 
ligion that  were  found  in  this  little  corner," 


THE    WORK  OF  THE  MEETING        97 

At  the  same  time  the  good  doctor  laments 
this  diversity,  he  speaks  of  "  the  power 
and  number  of  Quakers  in  this  colony." 
Dr.  McSparran  does  not  mention  the  sect 
which  the  Friends  had  most  to  fear,  if  the 
mention  in  their  records  is  a  true  indica- 
tion, —  the  New  Lights,  or  New  Lites,  as 
Stephen  Hoxsie  often  spelled  it.  As  early 
as  1748  a  Friend  was  denied  his  member- 
ship because  he  suffered  Friends'  meeting 
"  to  be  difturbed  and  broken  up  by  the 
aforefd  Wild  &  Ranting  people,  which 
meeting  was  in  his  own  houfe."  Peter 
Davis  and  John  Collins,  the  two  preachers, 
who  were  presumably  strong  in  points  of 
doctrine,  were  appointed  to  labor  with 
Henry  Mulkins,  as  "  there  appears  but  Lit- 
tle hopes  of  his  Return,"  and  in  1753  he 
was  denied  as  a  "  Newlite." 

They  were  also  called  Separates,  or  Sep- 
arators, and  the  outward  sign  of  a  Friend's 
removing  the  hat  seems  to  have  been  taken 
as  a  token  of  falling  from  grace.  A  little 
later  two  Friends  dealt  with  a  man  who  "has 
lately  joyned  with  ye  People  called  Sepa- 
rates in  their  Worfhip  fo  far  as  to  Stand 
up  with  his  Hatt  off  in  the  Time  of  their 
praying."  A  second  Friend  was  under  the 


98     NARRAGANSETT  FRIENDS'  MEETING 

same  charge,  as  he  had  "  attended  a  meet- 
ing of  the  people  called  feparators  and 
joined  with  them  in  worfhip  by  taking  off 
his  Hatt,  etc.,"  the  record  says.  This  re- 
minds one  of  the  early  days  when  the  hat 
played  such  an  important  part,  and  the 
Boston  martyr,  William  Robinson,  ex- 
claimed, "  it  is  for  not  putting  off  the  hat 
we  are  put  to  death ! "  One  of  these  Friends 
confessed  his  fault  as  follows :  — 

I  did  fometime  past  Inconfiderately  at- 
tend a  meeting  of  the  people  called  New 
Lights,  and  fo  far  joined  with  them  in 
their  worfhip  as  to  pull  off  my  hatt 
which  inconfiderate  conduct  of  mine  I 
freely  condemn. 

In  1767  a  young  man  was  under  dealing 
as  he  "  has  juftified  his  union  and  commun- 
ion with  the  Newlights  so-called,  and  Friends 
being  willing  that  he  fhould  maturely  con- 
fider  the  matter,  do  conclude  to  refer  it  to 
the  next  monthly  meeting."  Two  months 
later  his  case  was  again  referred,  "  that  his 
mother  may  have  an  opportunity  to  confer 
with  him."  But  her  arguments  did  not  pre- 
vail, and  he  soon  was  denied  his  member- 
ship because  he  "pretended  to  juftifie 
himfelf  in  being  Dippd  in  outward  water." 


THE   WORK  OF  THE  MEETING         99 

As  late  as  1787  the  New  Lights  gave 
trouble.  A  member  confessed  that  he  had 
been  to  a  funeral  "  and  Joined  with  them  in 
their  praying  and  fo  forth,  but  have  confid- 
ered  my  Conduct  therein  fmce  and  find 
that  I  mift  it  in  fo  doing,"  which  seems  a 
very  modern  mode  of  confession. 

The  Baptist  Church  in  Wakefield  claims 
descent  from  these  enthusiasts.  The  shores 
of  Kit's  Pond  for  many  years  have  witnessed 
converts  "  dippd  in  outward  water ;  "  and 
what  the  good  Friends  called  "  Wild  and 
Ranting  "  was  doubtless  the  fever  of  exhor- 
tation and  song  into  which  the  neighbor- 
hood gatherings  wrought  themselves.  Many 
of  the  hymns  were  a  sort  of  recitation  by 
the  leader,  with  a  refrain  taken  up  by  the 
congregation,  and  punctuated  with  sighs 
and  groans.  A  wild  religious  fervor  marked 
these  meetings,  wonderful  experiences  were 
related,  and  constant  backsliding  occurred. 
To  the  minds  of  Friends,  they  were  a  peo- 
ple of  "  dark  and  erroneous  principles." 
As  might  be  expected,  the  women's  meet- 
ing had  difficulty  with  women  who  were 
carried  away  by  this  enthusiasm.  Con- 
tent Davis,  the  wife  of  our  ancient  friend 
Peter  Davis,  was  in  charge  of  a  case  in 


100  NARRAGANSETT  FRIENDS'  MEETING 

1 762  where  a  woman  went  to  the  "  Sepa- 
arates  or  New  Light "  meeting,  and  with 
an  unconscious  arrogance  is  accused  of 
"  joining  with  them  in  what  they  call  wor- 
fhip."  She  refused  to  make  satisfaction, 
and  four  months  after  was  denied  for  her 
"  Sade  outgoings,"  as  she  was  "  too  far 
joyned  into  the  Religious  Sentiments  and 
practices  of  ye  people  called  New  light  or 
Saparates."  The  following  year  another 
woman  was  "  put  from  under  friends  care 
until  me  makes  Satisfaction  "  on  the  same 
charge. 

The  New  Light  doctrines  seem  to  have 
been  the  only  religious  difficulty  Friends 
had  to  contend  with  in  Narragansett.  It 
is  natural  that  any  revolt  from  the  orderly 
ways  of  Friends  should  go  to  the  furthest 
extreme  possible  at  the  time.  Episcopacy 
and  Presbyterianism  do  not  appear  to  have 
troubled  the  meeting.  But  there  were  al- 
ways sins  of  conduct  to  contend  with,  and 
the  meeting  kept  a  watchful  eye  upon  its 
members.  A  man  was  reported  as  he  "  had 
of  late  tarried  at  the  Tavern  unfeafonable 
and  drinked  to  Excefs  his  Behaviour  and 
Converfation  being  diforderly  therein/'  and 
was  duly  dealt  with.  Another  man  is  re- 


THE   WORK  OF  THE  MEETING        IOI 

ported  to  the  South  Kingstown  Prepara- 
tive Meeting,  as  he  "  had  Conducted  Difor- 
derly  in  Selling  Spirituous  Liquors  By 
Small  Quantities  without  Licenfe."1  Two 
Friends  were  appointed  to  treat  with  him. 

The  young  men  were  dealt  with  for  fight- 
ing, which  they  "  openly  condemn  "  as  being 
against  "  the  Peacable  principles  we  Pro- 
fefs,"  and  also  for  using  "  unbecoming  and 
prophain  language  for  which  reproachful 
act  I  am  very  forry  and  do  freely  condemn," 
the  repentant  young  man  declares.  Young 
Caleb  Hazard  confesses  that  he  "  has  of  late 
fo  far  given  way  to  the  paffion  of  anger  as 
to  ftrike  and  fight  with  Coon  Williams," 
which  he  freely  condemns.  A  paper  was 
read  at  the  Richmond  meeting-house  in 
August,  1767,  which  must  have  caused  a 
good  deal  of  talk  before  and  after  the  read- 
ing. "  A  man,"  the  writer  says, 

come  to  me  in  my  field  and  tho  I  Defired 
him  to  Keep  off  yet  made  an  attempt 
to  beat  or  abufe  me  to  prevent  which 
I  Suddenly  and  with  too  much  warmth 
pufhed  him  from  me  with  the  Rake  I 
was  leaning  on,  which  act  of  mine  as  it 
did  not  manifeft  to  that  Christian  patience 

1  Vol.  i.  p.  226. 


102  NARRAGANSETT  FRIENDS'  MEETING 

and  Example  in  Suffering  Tryals  of  every 
Kind  becoming  my  profeffion  I  therefore 
Freely  Condemn  it  and  Defire  that  I  may 
be  enabled  for  the  future  to  Suffer  pa- 
tiently any  abufe  or  whatever  elfe  I  may 
be  Tried  with  and  alfo  Defire  Friends  to 
Continue  their  watchful  care  over  me. 
Solomon    Hoxsie  made  a  complaint  of 
a  man  "  Giving  him  an  occafion  of  uneafi- 
nefs  by  Charging  him  with  Vfmg  Deciet 
with  him  at  feveral  times."     Thomas  Haz- 
ard and  other  Friends  were  appointed  to 
inquire   into   the   case    and   make  report : 
"  We  adjudge  that  John  Knowles  condemn 
his  charge  of  Deceit  againft  Solomon  Hox- 
fie  at  fome  meeting  of  friends  which  the 
meeting  {hall   think  Confiftent  with  good 
order."    Another  man  is  charged  with  using 
an    "  Unfavory    expreffion,    What   if    you 
Should  Try  it  out  with  your  guns,"  which 
he  is  advised  to  condemn. 

All  cases  of  dispute  were  to  be  adjusted 
by  the  meeting,  and  both  parties  sometimes 
gave  a  binding  obligation  to  abide  by  the 
decision  rendered.  One  of  the  Congdons 
of  Charlestown  was  complained  of  by  a 
Friend  "  for  ufing  of  him  hardly  in  bargain- 
ing," and  a  committee  was  appointed  "  to 


THE    WORK  OF  THE  MEETING       103 

inquire    into    the   Viracity"   of    the   com- 

plaint. 

Nathan   Tucker,  who   appeared  for  his 

father  in  this  case,  had  to  give 

his  obligation  to  fland  and  abide  the  De- 
termination of  fuch  Friends  as  Shall  or 
may  be  chosen  and  agreed  to  and  fully 
authorized  by  faid  Joseph  and  Nathan 
to  Hear  Judge  and  final  Determination 
make  of  the  whole  Controversy.  .  .  .  But 
notwithflanding  the  parties  are  firft  to  be 
Urged  to  an  amicable  and  equitable  fet- 
tlement  amongft  themfelves  and  make  re- 
turn of  their  fuccefs  to  our  next  Monthly 
Meeting.1 
Friends  could  sometimes  appeal  from  the 

judgment  of  the  committee,  and  a  new  com- 

mittee could  reconsider  the  case,  as  in  the 

following  instance  :  — 

The  friends  appointed  to  Treat  with 
Dan  Bowing  Concerning  his  not  comply- 
ing with  the  judgement  of  ffriends  in  a 
cafe  between  him  and  one  of  his  neigh- 
bors Made  Report  that  their  Judgment 
is  that  friend  Bowing  ought  not  to  pay 
anything  on  that  Judgment  them  friends 


gave.2 


Vol.  i.  p.  230.  a  Ibid.  p.  68. 


104  NARRAGANSETT  FRIENDS  MEETING 

In  another  case  there  was  a  difference 
between  two  Friends  about  settling  their 
accounts.  The  meeting  appointed  three 
Friends  to  assist  in  settling,  and,  if  they 
could  not  do  it  with  the  advice  of  the  com- 
mittee, to  "  Deliver  each  of  their  acco'ts 
into  the  hands  of  the  Said  Committee  and 
they  to  fettle  them  &  make  Report."  They 
"  Completed  that  affair  according  to  Ap- 
pointment "  ist  nth  month,  1755. 

If  Friends  ventured  to  appeal  to  the  law 
instead  of  to  the  meeting  they  were  severely 
dealt  with,  for  St.  Paul's  maxim  was  closely 
followed.  A  member  who  had  sued  his 
son-in-law,  contrary  to  the  good  order  of 
Friends,  is  mentioned.  The  "  Meeting  Re- 
quefts  of  him  to  Defift  fuch  Diforderly 
proceedings,  and  Defires  him  to  attend  our 
next  Monthly  Meeting  to  make  friends  Sat- 
isfaction." * 

In  another  case,  "  South  Kingftown  in- 
formed that  John  Barber  has  fo  far  difre- 
garded  the  Rules  of  Friends  Discipline  as 
to  fue  a  Friend  at  Common  Law."  Thomas 
Hazard  and  William  Robinson  were  ap- 
pointed to  treat  with  him,  and  to  inform 
him  "  unlefs  he  makes  faid  Friend  Satis- 
1  Vol.  i.  p.  92. 


THE    WORK  OF  THE  MEETING        105 

faction  for  the  unneceffary  coil  and  trouble 
he  has  put  him  to,  and  alfo  condemn  his 
faid  difregard  to  Friends  Difcipline  that 
he  will  be  denied  Memberfhip."  1 

Even  giving  advice  as  to  an  appeal  to  the 
law  was  a  breach  of  discipline.  A  man  and 
his  wife  are  mentioned  who  "  conducted 
Diforderly  in  that  they  advifed  and  encour- 
aged their  fon  "  to  prosecute  a  friend  at 
common  law,  and  "  they  are  advifed  to 
condemn  it." 

The  meeting  was  very  jealous  of  the 
credit  of  its  members.  Men  were  dealt 
with  for  not  paying  their  debts,  and  dis- 
owned if  they  proved  dishonorable  about  it. 
An  example  may  be  taken  as  a  typical  case. 

In  1766  South  Kingstown  Preparative 
Meeting  informed  the  monthly  meeting 
"  that  it  was  neceffary  a  Committee  be  ap- 
pointed to  infpect  the  circumftances  "  of  a 
Friend.  John  Collins,  Thomas  Wilbon,  and 
Thomas  Hazard  were  immediately  appointed 
"  to  go  out  and  treat  with  faid  Robert  he 
being  prefent  in  regard  to  his  circumftances 
and  make  Report  to  this  Meeting."  This 
committee  reported  "  that  by  his  Account 
his  Debts  and  his  Eftate  are  near  about 
1  Vol.  i.  p.  167. 


106   NARRAGANSETT  FRIENDS  MEETING 

equivalent  exclufive  of  his  Houfehold 
Goods  and  a  few  Cooper's  Tools  the  Farm 
he  bought  of  the  Heirs  of  James  Bowdoen 
and  the  purchafe  money  not  included." 
This  would  seem  a  large  exception,  and  the 
committee  was  instructed  "  to  make  further 
infpection  of  the  Said  Robert's  circum- 
ftances  and  make  Report  thereof." 

The  next  month  the  committee  reported, 
"  from  his  information,"  the  records  carefully 
state,  "  that  he  hath  bought  a  tract  of  land 
of  the  Heirs  of  Bowdoin  of  Bofton  lying 
in  Richmondtown,  the  confideration  three 
hundred  feventy  five  Dollars  to  be  paid  on 
ye  10  of  ye  i  mo  1767.  The  faid  land 
being  vewed  by  us  the  Said  Confideration 
in  our  Eftimation  is  too  much,  and  further 
that  he  hath  an  Opportunity  to  enter  into 
the  improvement  of  his  brother  Samuel's 
houfe  and  farm  and  to  have  the  ufe  of  one 
yoke  of  Oxen  therewith  at  the  Rent  per 
annum  of  1 10  yards  of  Common  Shirting 
flanning  and  the  keep  of  one  Yearling 
Horfe." 

(Signed)  JOHN  COLLINS. 

THOMAS  WILBORE. 

THOMAS  HAZARD. 


THE   WORK  OF  THE  MEETING        IO/ 

This  year  and  the  year  following,  1766- 
67,  were  the  years  in  which  College  Tom 
made  some  of  his  most  curious  bargains. 
He  bought  a  horse,  a  "  Dark  Coloured 
Natural  pacing  Horse  "  he  calls  it,  in  1 766, 
for  fifty-five  silver  dollars,  but  the  value  of 
the  money  was  to  be  taken  in  molasses,  in- 
digo, and  tea.  In  the  case  of  this  Friend 
whom  College  Tom  was  endeavoring  to  as- 
sist, the  bargain  for  the  land  was  made  in 
dollars  also,  but  the  rent  to  be  paid  in 
"  Common  Shirting  flanning,"  and  the  keep 
of  a  colt,  shows  how  scarce  actual  money 
was. 

The  committee  appointed  to  assist  in  this 
case  wrote  a  letter  to  Boston  to  endeavor 
to  get  Friend  Robert  released  from  his  pur- 
chase, and  he  reported  that  he  had  signed 
and  forwarded  the  letter,  a  copy  of  which 
was  presented  to  the  meeting.  As  he  also 
proposed  "  to  fell  fo  much  of  his  perfonal 
Eftate  as  would  difcharge  his  contracts,  and 
provide  a  fuitable  place  for  his  family  and 
put  himfelf  to  Labour  this  meeting  advife 
him  to  purfue  it." 1 

At  the  6th  month  meeting,  Friends  re- 
ported that  little  had  been  done  toward  set- 
1  Vol.  i.p.  174. 


108    NARRAGANSETT  FRIENDS'  MEETING 

tling  Robert's  debts,  and  at  the  gth  month 
meeting  the  same  was  true ;  "  therefor  as  it 
is  not  reputable  any  longer  to  delay  this 
meeting  advifes  him  to  notify  his  Creditors 
as  foon  as  conveniently  may  be  and  deliver 
up  his  Eftate  or  fo  much  of  it  as  will  fatisfy 
all  his  Creditors." 

At  the  next  meeting,  Friends  reported  that 
"faid  Robert  has  concluded  to  perfue  the 
advice  of  the  Monthly  Meeting  by  notifying 
his  Creditors  and  deliver  up  his  Eftate  to 
them  which  is  referred  to  wait  for  his  per- 
formance thereof." 

It  was  six  months  that  this  Friend  had 
been  advised  by  the  meeting,  and  the  case 
continued  much  longer.  The  account  of 
his  debts  was  brought  in,  which  amounted 
"  to  fifty  eight  and  three  quarters  of  a  dol- 
lar, and  also  Perfonal  Eftate  Amounting 
to  the  Same  Sum,"  which  he  was  desired  to 
"  offer  up  "  to  satisfy  his  creditors.  The 
sum  seems  ridiculously  small  to  modern 
ears,  but  the  scarcity  of  money  must  be  re- 
membered. Corn  in  1767  was  ninety  shil- 
lings a  bushel,  and  one  ewe  lamb  sold  for 
six  pounds  in  bills.  Turned  into  old  tenor, 
Friend  Robert's  debts  would  amount  to  over 
^460,  which  seems  a  more  considerable 


THE    WORK  OF  THE  MEETING        109 

sum  to  be  advised  about.  After  several 
months'  delay  he  reported  he  had  only  one 
creditor  left,  and  finally  he  appeared  in 
meeting  and  "  informed  that  he  had  fettled 
with  his  one  creditor." 

But  misfortune  pursued  him,  and  in  6th 
month,  1772,  he  had  some  very  urgent  ad- 
vice. He  was  first  to  deliver  up  the  pos- 
session of  the  farm  which  he  had  improved 
for  several  years  to  his  brother,  who  had 
bought  it.  He  is  advised  :  — 

2nd  that  he  difpofe  of  his  flock  farming 
Utenfils  etc  Sufficient  to  pay  all  his 
Debts.  That  he  accept  of  the  privilege 
that  his  Father  and  Brother  offers  him 
(that  is  the  Room  in  the  houfe  that  he 
lives  in  untill  next  Spring  and  milk  of  one 
Cow  this  seafon  and  an  acre  and  a  half 
of  land  already  planted  for  such  a  confid- 
eration  as  they  have  agreed  on). 

4th  [sic]  that  he  put  himfelf  at  labour 
for  the  Support  of  his  family  what  time 
he  hath. 

5th  that  he  Endeavour  to  find  Suitable 
places  to  put  out  his  Children  to  trades 
and  learning  to  fitt  them  for  bufiness,  and 
take  friends  Advice  therein.1 

1  Vol.  i.  p.  262. 


110  NARRAGANSETT  FRIENDS'  MEETING 

Thus  closely  were  the  outward  affairs  of 
the  members  under  the  care  of  the  meeting. 
Two  or  three  debtors  are  mentioned  who 
left  town  without  paying  their  debts,  and 
very  plain  language  is  used  of  them.  One 
man,  who  was  denied  for  this  reason,  is  in- 
formed that  "  this  was  a  piece  of  Conduct 
not  only  againfl  the  Rules  of  the  Society 
but  fcandalous  in  its  Nature  and  injurious 
to  thofe  to  whom  he  was  indebted  "  in  the 
paper  that  was  publicly  read  denouncing 
him.  The  power  of  public  opinion  was 
thus  used  for  honesty  and  uprightness. 

In  another  case,  Thomas  Hazard  and 
Joseph  Congdon  were  appointed  to  inform 
a  debtor  "  What  friends  require  of  him." 
This  man  desired  time  to  settle,  "  as  the 
weather  has  been  Difficult  and  he  lame,"  a 
mode  of  expression  which  appeals  to  one's 
sympathies.  But  the  meeting  was  just, 
and,  though  they  gave  time  in  abundance, 
finally  insisted  on  satisfaction. 

Thomas  Hazard  was  again  on  a  commit- 
tee which  dealt  very  plainly  with  another 
delinquent.  It  was  proposed  to  Job  Irish, 
"  by  way  of  Advice,"  that  he  "  provide 
proper  place  amongfl  Friends  for  his  wife 
and  children,  deliver  up  to  his  Creditors 


THE   WORK  OF  THE  MEETING        III 

all  of  his  worldly  Eftate  to  be  equitably 
divided  amongft  them,  hire  himfelf  out  by 
the  year  by  Huf  bandry  or  otherwife  for  as 
much  as  he  can  juflly  get,  live  frugally  and 
make  payment  ftill  with  what  he  mall  have 
to  fpare  of  his  Earnings."  This  was  at  the 
2d  month  meeting,  1767,  and  the  vigorous 
English  is  doubtless  College  Tom's.  Five 
months  later,  "  Stephen  Hoxfie  informed 
that  he  had  not  yet  fent  the  Writing  to  Job 
Irifh  which  Friends  ordered  him  to  write 
and  fend."  At  the  next  meeting  "  Stephen 
Hoxfie  is  defired  to  take  care  to  fend  to 
Job  Irifh  as  foon  as  he  conveniently  can." 
But  at  the  loth  month  meeting  he  has  "  yet 
omitted  fending  to  Job  Irifh  as  he  was  ap- 
pointed to  do."  Nine  months  after  the  let- 
ter was  directed  to  be  sent,  "Stephen  Hoxfie 
informed  that  he  has  fent  forward  the  letter 
that  he  was  to  write  to  Job  Irifh,  but  Friends 
not  having  any  account  whether  he  has  re- 
ceived it  or  not,  therefore  that  matter  con- 
cerning him  is  referred."  Early  in  the  next 
year  it  was  again  referred,  "  as  Friends  have 
no  account  from  him,  and  as  it  is  uncer- 
tain whether  he  received  what  was  wrote  to 
him  by  the  Clerk  refpecting  his  creditors." 
Finally,  fourteen  months  after  the  first  ac- 


112    NARRAGANSETT  FRIENDS'  MEETING 

tion,  "  This  Meeting  is  informed  that  Job 
Irifh  has  received  the  writing  that  the 
Clerk  wrote  to  him  and  that  he  is  defirous 
Friends  would  yet  wait  fome  longer  time 
with  him  therefore  Friends  Condefcends 
to  wait  with  him  until  the  next  Monthly 
Meeting." 

This  incident  shows  clearly  the  difficul- 
ties of  communication  over  the  country 
roads.  Matthew  Allen,  who  was  a  South 
Kingstown  representative  when  the  meet- 
ing was  set  apart  at  East  Greenwich,  was 
once  summoned  to  appear  at  monthly  meet- 
ing, but  sent  excuse,  "  he  being  an  ancient 
Man  and  the  Diftance  fo  far  to  ride." 
From  Stephen  Hoxsie's,  near  the  Rich- 
mond meeting-house,  to  Tower  Hill,  was 
indeed  a  good  morning's  ride,  and  Job  Irish 
evidently  lived  in  a  remote  part  of  the 
town.  All  travel  was  tedious,  even  with 
the  good  Narragansett  pacers,  and  the  con- 
sent of  the  meeting  had  to  be  obtained  for  a 
journey.  On  one  occasion  Robert  Knowles 
"  laid  before  this  meeting  his  intention  of 
going  with  his  wife  to  Bofton  to  vifit  their 
Parents  and  Relatives  and  defired  a  few 
lines  of  Friends  Unity  with  him."  A  man 
and  his  wife  acknowledge  "  their  shortnefs 


THE   WORK  OF  THE  MEETING        113 

in  not  adviiing  with  Friends  timely  "  as  to 
their  removal,  and  many  certificates  are 
recorded  where  Friends  went  on  a  visit  to 
Long  Island  or  the  Oblong. 

Indeed,  the  meeting  was  kept  busy  regu- 
lating the  smaller  as  well  as  the  larger 
affairs  of  life,  and  keeping  closely  to  the 
"good  order  of  Friends  therein." 


VI 

THE   WOMEN'S   MEETING 


VI 


IT  is  to  the  honor  of  George  Fox  that 
he  early  recognized  the  value  of  women's 
work  in  the  church.  There  had  been  Sis- 
ters of  Chanty  for  hundreds  of  years  before 
his  time,  but  the  cloistered  nun  had  special 
work,  and  was  shut  off  from  the  usual  life 
of  women.  It  was  George  Fox,  who  owed 
so  much  to  Margaret  Fell,  who  first  estab- 
lished women's  meetings  in  the  church  he 
founded,  and  made  them  of  equal  impor- 
tance with  men's.  Among  the  Friends, 
trained  in  habits  of  independent  thought, 
and  early  taught  individual  responsibility, 
arose  women  of  singular  purity  and  beauty 
of  life,  —  women  of  exalted  character,  and 
often  of  great  spiritual  gifts. 

At  the  establishment  of  the  South  Kings- 
town monthly  meeting,  the  women's  meet- 
ing, as  well  as  the  men's,  was  set  in  order 
and  the  records  regularly  kept.  These 
form  an  interesting  comment  on  the  fuller 
records  of  the  men's  meeting,  and  begin  in 
1744,  a  few  months  later  than  the  men's 


Il8    NARRAGANSETT  FRIENDS*  MEETING 

records.  They  are  preserved  in  a  small 
quarto  volume,  which  cost  fourteen  shil- 
lings, as  the  first  entry  duly  records.  Anna 
Perry  was  the  first  clerk,  and  served  for 
fifteen  years.  Her  vagaries  of  spelling  are 
delightfully  individual.  The  meetings  were 
always  called  "  a  Pon,"  and  she  was  fre- 
quently appointed  "  to  Draw  an  a  Piffel  to 
the  Quarterly  Meeting."  It  must  have  been 
difficult  for  the  women  to  meet  regularly, 
riding,  as  they  had  to,  from  Richmond  or 
Westerly  to  Tower  Hill,  or  from  Tower 
Hill  to  the  other  meetings.  Often,  when 
the  meetings  were  called  "  a  Pon,"  the 
entry  comes,  "  So  Kingstown  now  a  Pear- 
rence,  Westerly  now  a  Pearrence  Notwith- 
ftanding  the  Vifitors  has  Maid  Some  Pro- 
grefs  in  Vifiting  the  familys  of  friends  and 
are  in  Some  Degree  Satisfied  theirwith," 
and  the  "  a  Piffel "  was  drawn  and  signed. 
In  1758  a  new  clerk  succeeded,  as  the 
women  were  "  under  a  Weighty  fence  of 
the  Loss  it  is  to  the  Meeting  not  having  a 
Clerk  Abilitated  to  Attend  the  Service." 
The  present  clerk  informed  that  she  could 
not,  and  "  the  Meeting  thinks  Proper  To 
be  Looking  out  for  one  "  that  may  attend. 
At  the  next  meeting,  Mary  Hull  was  ap- 


THE    WOMEN'S  MEETING  1 19 

pointed,  much  to  the  benefit  of  the  spelling. 
Content  Davis,  Peter  Davis's  wife,  Abigail 
Rodman,  and  Anne  Hoxsie  were  prominent 
among  the  women  as  visitors,  and  on  com- 
mittees to  see  to  the  orderly  conduct  of 
marriages.  Five  shillings  were  paid  for 
sweeping  out  one  of  the  meeting-houses ; 
as  already  noticed,  New  Lights  were  dealt 
with,  and  the  regular  and  orderly  routine  of 
Friends  was  carefully  attended  to.  In  what 
estimation  the  women's  meeting  was  held 
in  South  Kingstown  is  well  shown  by  the 
minute  which  Thomas  Hazard  was  in- 
structed to  draw  up  in  1771.  The  Nine 
Partners'  Monthly  Meeting  had  sent "  lines  " 
to  the  South  Kingstown  meeting,  to  in- 
timate that  it  was  not  according  to  their 
practice  to  receive  women  Friends  unless 
their  certificate  was  signed  by  the  clerk  of 
the  men's  meeting :  — 

Therefore  in  Condefention  to  our 
friends  of  the  monthly  meeting  at  Nine 
partner's  we  do  hereby  direct  the  Clerk 
of  this  meeting  to  fignifie  to  sd  monthly 
meeting  that  we  have  neither  precedent 
nor  Difcipline  amongft  us  for  fuch  a 
practice,  neither  do  we  think  it  Convn- 
ant  [convenient]  So  far  to  Degrade  our 


120    NARRAGANSETT  FRIENDS'  MEETING 

women's  meeting.    But  to  Let  them  have 
the  Ufe  and  Exerfife  of  our  Difcipline  as 
occafion  may  call  for  it  in  Conducting 
the  affairs  of  their  meeting  not  Defiring 
the    Preheminence  when  Truth   admits 
of  none  But  believing  that  both  male 
&  female  are  all  one  in  Chrifl  Jefus. 
(Signed)  THOMAS  HAZARD  Clerk  this 
time,  ist  day  of  ye  4  mo.  1771. 

The  respect  with  which  the  women's 
meeting  of  South  Kingstown  was  spoken 
of,  though  doubtless  due  to  the  character 
of  all  the  women  in  it,  must  have  been  in- 
creased by  the  career  of  two  preaching 
Friends,  Patience  Greene,  and  later  Alice 
Rathbone.  As  early  as  1755,  Patience 
Greene  is  called  a  "  public  friend,"  and  a 
member  of  the  Society  gave  Friends  "  an 
occafion  of  uneafiness  by  his  not  joining 
in  prayer"  with  her  in  a  public  meeting. 
The  days  of  open  disturbance  in  meeting 
were  not  yet  passed  ;  and,  after  being  dealt 
with,  the  refractory  member  appeared  in 
meeting  and  "  faid  that  he  hoped  he  fhould 
never  give  friends  the  Like  occafion  for 
Uneafiness  which  this  meeting  takes  up 
with  for  Satisfaction."  The  case  must  have 


THE    WOMEN' >S  MEETING  121 

caused  a  good  deal  of  commotion,  for  it  is 
several  times  referred  to,  and  Friends  are 
11  cautioned  to  mow  no  Public  Marks  of 
Difunion  except  they  have  certain  Intelli- 
gence that  fuch  a  Friend  is  under  Deal- 
ing." 

Patience  Greene  had  a  remarkable  career. 
She  was  the  daughter  of  David  and  Mary 
Greene,  called  of  North  Kingstown,  both 
members  of  the  meeting,  and,  at  the  time 
of  this  public  mark  of  disunity,  was  only 
twenty-two  years  old.  An  account  of  her 
life  and  services  was  published  shortly  after 
her  death.  The  copy  I  have  studied  be- 
longed to  Andrew  Nichols,  also  a  member 
of  the  meeting.  She  is  said  to  have  "  Early 
found  in  herfelf  a  propenfity  to  folly  dis- 
iipation  and  vanity."  About  the  age  of 
twenty-one,  however,  she  appeared  in  "  pub- 
lic teftimony,"  and,  until  her  death  forty 
years  later,  continued  an  ardent  and  valued 
preacher.  After  her  marriage  with  Pre- 
served Brayton  in  1758,  they  "were  exer- 
cifed  on  account  of  the  Slavery  of  the  Afri- 
cans," and  freed  their  own  slaves.  In  1771 
she  traveled  on  a  religious  visit  as  far 
south  as  Georgia,  leaving  her  "  infant  family 
feeming  to  require  her  nurfmg  attention," 


122    NARRAGANSETT  FRIENDS*  MEETING 

the  old  Testimony  phrases  it,  and  also  had 
the  "  exercife  of  parting  with  a  beloved 
weakly  husband."  But,  smile  as  we  may  at 
the  old  phrases,  it  was  a  noble  work  she 
was  called  to,  a  work  to  which  she  felt  her- 
self divinely  led.  Once  they  were  lost  in 
the  woods,  where  they  expected  to  spend 
the  night,  but  she  says,  "  I  enjoyed  more 
peace  of  mind  upon  that  reflection  than  I 
fhould  in  fome  houfes  that  were  rilled  with 
flaves,  for  that  wounds  me  more  than  many 
other  evils."  She  returned  home  after  this 
long  journey,  most  of  it  upon  horseback, 
thirteen  months  from  the  time  she  left,  to 
find  one  child  dead  and  another  dying! 
Later  she  spent  four  years  in  England, 
from  1783  to  1787,  traveling  in  England, 
Scotland,  and  Wales.  In  the  latter  coun- 
try she  was  much  oppressed,  as  she  could 
not  speak  the  language,  and  there  was  no 
interpreter.  As  she  sat  in  sorrow  think- 
ing this  over,  and  longing  to  speak  to  the 
people,  a  knock  came  at  the  door,  and  she 
knew  an  interpreter  had  been  sent  her! 
And  so  it  proved,  for  "  thus  again  the  Al- 
mighty made  way  for  me  to  my  humbling 
admiration." 

Almost  all    the  meetings   in   England, 


THE   WOMEN'S  MEETING  123 

small  and  great,  were  visited.  She  went 
to  "our  kind  friend  Lindley  Murray's  to 
lodge  "  at  York.  "  His  converfation  was 
reviving  to  my  fpirits,"  she  writes.  The 
prisons  were  visited.  It  was  still  the  time 
when  capital  punishment  was  inflicted  for 
robbery,  and  debtors  languished  for  years 
in  jail.  Finally  she  had  a  concern  of  mind 
to  visit  the  King !  The  way  not  opening, 
however,  she  sent  him  an  admirable  address 
on  the  subject  of  "  promoting  the  freedom 
of  the  enflaved  Negroes  in  thy  dominions." 

It  was  a  woman  of  this  ardent  and  de- 
voted spirit  who  preached  in  the  South 
Kingstown  meeting  in  the  freshness  of  her 
youth. 

Women  Friends  occasionally  came  from 
England,  as  in  1759,  when  "our  Well  es- 
teemed Friend  Mary  Kirby "  brought  cer- 
tificates from  London,  and  her  own  meeting 
of  Norfolk,  England.  Her  traveling  com- 
panion was  Elizabeth  Smith,  a  member  of 
the  Burlington  meeting  in  "  West  Jerfeys." 
These  certificates  were  read  in  the  monthly 
meeting  to  "  good  Satisfaction,"  and  the 
Friends  were  at  liberty  to  preach  in  all  the 
meetings. 

The  women  were  strict  in  requiring  at- 


124    NARRAGANSETT  FRIENDS  MEETING 

tendance  at  meeting.  In  1770  a  commit- 
tee was  appointed  to  deal  with  six  Friends 
for  not  attending,  and  for  not  using  plain 
language.  Among  the  ladies  visited  Col- 
lege Tom's  wife  was  mentioned.  The  next 
meeting,  the  committee  reports  "  that  they 
find  fome  making  their  excufes  which  they 
think  is  fome  what  reafonable."  Elizabeth 
Hazard  and  three  other  Friends  report 
"that  they  are  willing  but  Difficulties  at- 
tend their  getting  out  to  Meeting."  So 
closely  were  Friends  watched  over.  The 
system  had  its  reverse  side,  as  when  the 
young  women  were  dealt  with  for  "  keep- 
ing company"  with  one  out  of  meeting. 
One  cannot  blame  a  high-spirited  girl  for 
saying,  as  Hannah  Robinson  did  say,  in 
1768,  when  dealt  with,  "that  she  has  as  live 
Friends  would  deny  her  as  not."  Hezekiah 
Collins's  daughters  condemned  their  being 
at  a  marriage  "  where  there  was  frolick- 
ing ;"  but  in  spite  of  that,  some  Friends 
were  "  not  fatisfied  about  what  was  done 
about  Hezekiah  Collins  is  Daughters,"  and 
the  acceptance  of  their  apology  was  recon- 
sidered, with  the  result  of  their  being  de- 
nied at  the  expiration  of  nine  months. 
The  records  of  quiet  and  peaceful  doings 


THE   WOMEWS  MEETING  12$ 

among  the  women  are  suddenly  broken  in 
1763  by  the  mention  of  a  woman  who  was 
complained  of  "  for  offering  to  Murder  her 
Husband" !  Several  months  afterward  she 
had  given  no  satisfaction,  and  in  2d  mo., 
1 764,  she  was  denied,  as  she  has  of  "  Late 
been  charged  with  offering  to  Murder  her 
Husband,  for  Which  Reproachful  Trans- 
greffion  me  Hath  been  Treated  with  Sev- 
eral Times."  Her  first  name  was  Patience: 
perhaps  that  was  all  she  had!  She  lived 
in  Stonington,  and  one  can  imagine  the 
excitement  of  Friends  over  such  an  oc- 
currence. In  the  marriage  certificate  of 
this  woman  she  makes  her  mark  only,  as 
her  sister  does  in  hers,  a  rare  thing  in  the 
case  of  Friends. 

But  the  great  care  of  the  women's  meet- 
ing was  to  see  that  the  young  women  of 
the  Society  married  in  "  Younety,"  as  the 
good  clerk  Anna  Perry  spells  it  in  1745, 
when  a  Friend  presented  a  paper  which 
condemned  "  her  out  Goings  in  taking  a 
husband  contrary  to  the  minds  of  friends 
and  is  Received  into  Younety  Again."  A 
mother,  a  few  years  later,  "  condemns  her 
forredness  in  Concenting  to  her  fons  mar- 
rag  And  going  to  the  Wedding  it  being 


126    NARRAGANSETT  FRIENDS*  MEETING 

out  of  the  younety  of  friends."  At  this  day 
it  is  difficult  to  imagine  such  constant  in- 
terference with  family  affairs.  But  at  that 
time,  in  the  neighboring  colonies,  the  min- 
ister was  the  autocrat  of  the  town.  Here 
in  Narragansett,  Friends  only  advised,  and 
the  men's  records  as  well  as  the  women's 
are  filled  with  cases  where  it  was  needed. 

It  was  reported  to  the  meeting  that  Wil- 
liam Robinson  had  given  his  consent  to 
the  marriage  of  his  daughter  with  a  young 
man  not  of  the  Society,  "  therefore  our 
friends  Solomon  Hoxfie  and  Peleg  Peck- 
ham  are  appointed  to  infpect  into  the  ftate 
of  that  cafe,  and  to  advife  and  caution  as 
they  find  occafion  and  give  us  an  account 
thereof  at  our  next  Monthly  Meeting."  ] 

This  marriage  proceeded,  however,  and 
took  place  in  the  house,  after  which  there 
was  "  vain  mirth,"  and  William  Robinson 
was  duly  dealt  with.  He  acknowledged 
his  offense,  and  said  he  had  rather  "  it  had 
been  otherways,"  which  the  meeting  did 
not  accept  as  satisfaction,  and  he  presented 
a  more  humble  paper  of  acknowledgment, 
which  was  received.  One  of  the  good 
friends  who  dealt  with  William  Robinson 

1  Vol.  i.  p.  202. 


THE   WOMEN'S  MEETING  127 

on  this  occasion  found  a  little  later  that 
girls  are  difficult  to  manage.  He  did  not 
wait  to  be  complained  of,  but  in  1769  Solo- 
mon Hoxfie  presented  a  paper  to  the  meet- 
ing in  which  he  gave  an  account  that  he 
"  fuffered  one  of  another  Society  to  keep 
company  with  and  alfo  to  marry  his  Bro- 
ther John  Hoxfie's  Daughter  whom  he 
brought  up,  which  conduct  he  freely  con- 
demned and  defired  Friends  to  pafs  it  by 
which  paper  he  is  defired  to  read  at  the  end 
of  the  Firft  Day  Meeting  where  he  attends 
and  return  it  to  our  next  Monthly  Meet- 
ing."1 

It  makes  a  curious  picture !  —  a  man 
universally  respected  and  honored,  often 
charged  with  the  grave  concerns  of  the 
meeting,  standing  up  at  the  end  of  wor- 
ship, and  reading  his  own  condemnation 
for  allowing  his  niece  to  marry  as  she 
wished.  If  the  girl  had  any  affection  for 
her  uncle,  it  must  have  troubled  her  sorely 
to  have  brought  such  humiliation  upon  him. 

When  marriages  were  made  "  in  the  good 
order  of  Friends,"  the  young  man  and  wo- 
man appeared  in  monthly  meeting  of  men 
and  women  Friends  on  a  fifth  day,  and  laid 
1  Vol.  i.  p.  212. 


128    NARRAGANSETT  FRIENDS'  MEETING 

their  intentions  of  marriage  before  the  meet- 
ing. They  were  asked  to  wait  till  the  next 
monthly  meeting  for  their  consent.  In  the 
mean  time  a  committee  of  men  Friends  was 
appointed  to  inquire  into  the  young  man's 
"  converfation  and  clearnefs  as  to  mar- 
riage," and  the  women's  meeting  visited 
the  young  woman.  If  these  inquiries  were 
satisfactory,  when  the  young  people  ap- 
peared at  the  next  meeting,  and  "  fignified 
they  were  of  the  fame  mind,"  the  meeting 
gave  consent  and  appointed  two  Friends  to 
attend  the  wedding,  to  report  how  it  was 
carried  on.  One  late  autumn  day,  we  find, 
"  The  weather  being  Difficult  the  Young 
woman  Could  not  be  prefent,"  and  the 
man  appeared  alone  for  his  answer.  The 
women's  record  puts  it  very  simply,  as 
when  it  states  that  "  Sylvefler  Robinfon  and 
Alice  Perry  appeared  for  their  anfwer  and 
had  it." 

If  the  lady  belonged  to  a  different  meet- 
ing, the  man,  "having  the  Intention  of  al- 
tering his  Condition  by  way  of  Marriage," 
desired  "  a  few  lines  from  ffriends  of  his 
Clearnefs  therein  in  thefe  parts."  New- 
port damsels  in  this  way  were  often  brought 
to  Narragansett. 


THE   WOMEN1  S  MEETING  129 

Consent  to  marriage  was  sometimes  re- 
fused, as  with  the  young  man  College  Tom 
and  Peleg  Peckham  dealt  with.  They  re- 
port that  they  find  "nothing  but  that  he 
is  clear  as  to  marriage,  but  fome  other 
Branches  of  his  Converfation  not  fo  pure 
as  they  Defire."  A  committee  was  ap- 
pointed to  treat  further  with  him,  but  he 
gave  them  "  No  encouragement  of  Com- 
plying with  the  good  order  of  Truth,  there- 
fore this  meeting  Do  not  permit  him  to 
marry  among  Friends." l 

The  weddings  took  place  at  the  meeting- 
houses at  a  week-day  meeting,  when  the 
pair  stood,  before  all  their  relations  and 
friends,  and  solemnly  plighted  each  other 
their  troth.  "  I  take  this  My  friend  Alice 
Perry,"  Sylvester  Robinson  said,  "  to  be  my 
wife,  promifmg  through  divine  affiftance  to 
be  unto  her  a  faithful  and  affectionate  hus- 
band until  Death  mall  feparate  us."  The 
damsel  Alice  repeated  words  "of  the  like 
import,"  as  the  old  form  phrases  it,  and  the 
religious  part  of  the  ceremony  was  over. 
Then  the  great  certificate  was  signed  by 
the  bride  and  groom,  their  parents  and 
friends  and  neighbors,  after  which  came 
1  Vol.  i.  p.  85. 


130   NARRAGANSETT  FRIENDS'  MEETING 

the  festivities,  of  which  the  overseers  some- 
times complained.  "  Some  of  the  young 
people  were  not  fo  orderly  as  could  be  de- 
fired,"  a  Friend  reports.  Some  weddings 
"  were  pretty  orderly  carried  on,"  and  others 
"  orderly  as  far  as  my  obfervation,"  the 
Friend  says.  Did  the  kindly  old  gentle- 
man turn  away  from  beholding  vanity,  and, 
shutting  himself  in  the  dining-room  with 
the  roasts  and  the  sweets,  pay  no  attention 
to  the  "  Concourfe  of  Young  people  "  ?  For 
the  young  people  liked  to  dance  then  as 
now,  and,  if  they  could  not  dance  at  Friends* 
weddings,  there  were  others  in  Narragan- 
sett  where  they  could.  Two  Perry  brothers 
are  dealt  with  on  this  account,  and  defend 
themselves  in  the  modern  spirit.  Our 
friends  Thomas  Hazard  and  Peleg  Peck- 
ham  sign  the  report,  which  reads  :  — 

Purfuant  to  our  appointment  we  have 
treated  with  Jonathan  Perry  and  Samuel 
Perry  for  their  being  at  an  Entertain- 
ment fubfequent  to  a  Marriage  at  which 
there  was  vain  Recreation.  Now  here 
follows  the  fubftance  of  Jonathan's  fenti- 
ment  on  the  affair  (viz)  that  he  did  no 
harm  nor  received  any  there  and  that  he 
had  rather  be  in  the  Meeting.  Samuel's 


THE   WOMEN'S  MEETING  131 

fentiments  as  we  underftood  from  what 
he  faid  amount  to  this  (viz)  that  he 
thought  there  was  no  harm  in  keeping 
the  company  neither  received  any  at  the 
faid  Entertainment  and  that  he  was  will- 
ing to  send  in  a  paper  to  the  Meeting 
but  neglected  to  do  it  although  urged 
thereto.1 

Jonathan  Perry  afterwards  presented  a 
paper  condemning  his  misconduct,  but  a 
year  or  so  later  he  is  again  reported  as  at- 
tending a  wedding  and  apparently  dancing 
himself,  whereupon  he  is  again  called  to 
account.  Samuel  Perry  makes  explicit  ac- 
knowledgment :  — 

Through  my  too  great  inattention  to 
the  dictates  of  Truth  in  my  own  Mind 
and  attachment  to  light  and  vain  Com- 
pany I  have  been  to  an  Entertainment 
of  late  where  there  was  vain  Recreation 
which  I  too  much  countenanced  and 
joined  with  all  of  which  is  Contrary  to 
the  Good  Order  of  Truth  as  well  as  the 
Difcipline  of  our  Society  which  I  look 
upon  to  be  neceffary  to  reftrain  Youth 
from  fuch  undue  Liberties. 
Therefore  he  condemns  his  conduct.2 

1  Vol.  i.  p.  179.  2  Ibid.  p.  184. 


132    NARRAGANSETT  FRIENDS*  MEETING 

When  young  Friends  actually  married 
out  of  meeting,  they  often  presented  a  pa- 
per of  acknowledgment,  and  were  received 
again.  It  must  have  been  rather  a  bitter 
thing  for  a  man  to  present  "  some  lines  " 
even  "in  some  Meafure  condemning  his 
mifconduct  in  marrying  out  of  Unity  of 
Friends,"  and  to  have  it  referred  for  further 
consideration.1  This  last  paper  was  still 
"referred  that  Friends  may  have  a  Sight 
and  Senfe  of  his  Sincerity  in  condemning 
his  mifconduct."  After  all,  the  man  was 
married,  and  how  could  he  sincerely  con- 
demn it  if  he  loved  his  bride? 

One  man  appeared  in  meeting  and  "  in- 
formed Friends  that  he  had  unadvifedly 
and  inconsiderately  married  out  of  the 
Rules  of  the  Society,"  which  he  "  freely 
and  heartily  "  condemned.2 

Another,  who  had  made  a  marriage  con- 
trary to  Friends'  rules,  declared  that  if  they 
would  "  pass  it  by  "  he  would  endeavor  to 
be  more  steady ! 

A  third  man  presents  the  following  pa- 
per, which  makes  one  wonder  what  kind  of 
woman  his  wife  was  :  — 

I  do  hereby  acknowledge  that  I  have 

» 

1  Vol.  i.  p.  212.  2  Ibid.  p.  156. 


THE   WOMEN'S  MEETING  133 

wilfully  and  knowingly  transgreffed  the 
good  Order  and  Rules  of  the  Society 
in  proceeding  in  Marriage  with  a  woman 
not  of  the  Society  nor  according  to  the 
Method  allowed  of  amongfl  Friends  for 
which  Transgreffion  I  am  heartily  forry 
and  do  defire  Friends  to  forgive  and  pafs 
by  and  hope  that  I  lhall  by  the  Lord's 
affiftance  be  preferved  not  only  from 
Transgreffions  of  fo  wilful  a  kind  but 
alfo  from  all  others.1 

In  1758  all  marriages  not  among  Friends 
were  forbidden  by  the  Society,  and  Friends 
adhered  to  their  rules.2 

This  great  care  for  the  proper  solemniza- 
tion of  marriage  is  seen  to  be  necessary 
when  we  remember  that  the  day  of  marry- 
ing in  shifts  was  not  long  past.  Two  cases, 
among  others,  are  on  record  in  the  South 
Kingstown  Records,  one  in  1719,  when  the 
man  took  the  woman  in  marriage  "  After 
me  had  gone  Four  times  a  cros  the  High- 
way In  Only  her  Shift  and  hairlace  and  no 
other  Clothing  " ! 3  The  other  woman,  in 
1724,  had  her  "  Shift  and  hair  Lace  and  no 

1  Vol.  i.  p.  H2. 

2  Ibid.  p.  85. 

9  S.  K.  Council  Records ,  No.  r,  1704-1723. 


134    NARRAGANSETT  FRIENDS*  MEETING 

other  clothing  on  that  I  fe,"1  the  justice 
who  marries  them  declares.  These  were 
both  winter  weddings,  one  in  February 
and  one  in  December,  so  that  humanity, 
as  well  as  decency  and  honesty,  were  out- 
raged. For  the  object  of  the  curious  cere- 
mony was  the  evasion  of  debt.  If  the  wife 
brought  her  husband  nothing,  she  could 
not  even  bring  her  debts,  and  he  was  free 
from  paying  them,  which  he  would  other- 
wise have  to  do. 

When  such  extreme  care  was  manifested 
by  the  meeting  in  regard  to  marriage,  it 
may  well  be  imagined  how  severe  the  deal- 
ings of  Friends  were  with  immorality. 
Some  young  members  are  on  record  for 
"  diforderly  and  fcandalous  conduct,"  and 
requested  to  clear  themselves  of  the  charges 
brought  against  them.  Their  offenses  are 
described  in  very  plain  English,  and,  no 
matter  what  position  their  fathers  had  in 
meeting,  they  were  expelled  if  the  charge 
was  proved  true.  With  Roman  fortitude 
the  father  in  one  case  signed  the  document 
with  the  other  Friends,  setting  forth  his 
son's  misdoing,  which  was  publicly  read, 

1  Town  Meeting  Records,  Births,  Marriages^  etc.,  1723- 
1726,  p.  69  (from  the  back  of  the  volume). 


THE    WOMEN'S  MEETING  135 

denouncing  him.  In  one  case,  after  five 
years  of  disfellowship,  the  young  man  was 
received  into  the  Society  again,  and  a  cer- 
tificate given  him  allowing  him  to  marry. 
Only  one  woman  in  a  period  of  thirty  years 
was  dealt  with  on  a  similar  charge. 

We  may  smile  at  the  quaint  phraseology 
of  the  records,  but  it  was  a  good  service 
those  women  did.  Patience  Greene,  with 
her  gifts  of  exhortation ;  Content  Davis, 
visiting  the  families  of  Friends ;  good  Anna 
Perry,  with  her  oddities  of  spelling,  —  all 
did  an  important  work. 

In  a  new  country,  and  in  a  time  of  lax 
morality,  the  service  rendered  by  the  high 
standard  of  Friends  can  hardly  be  over- 
estimated. 


VII 
SLAVERY 


VII 

THE  Friends  in  Narragansett  seem  to 
have  united,  in  no  common  degree,  spiritual 
virtues  with  temporal  prosperity.  If  they 
had  a  David  Greene,  whose  daughter  spoke 
of  heavenly  things,  and  left  all  to  preach 
the  gospel,  they  also  had  substantial  and 
well-to-do  farmers,  the  Rodmans  and  Haz- 
ards, and  others,  who,  like  their  neighbors, 
worked  their  farms  with  slaves.  South 
Kingstown  was  richer  in  slaves  than  any 
other  part  of  Rhode  Island,  and  any  effort 
for  the  abolition  of  slavery  would  be  sure 
to  arouse  opposition. 

It  is  difficult  to  determine  the  exact  num- 
ber of  slaves  in  South  Kingstown.  The 
probate  records  for  1743  mention  only 
nineteen  bequeathed  by  will  in  that  year. 
The  will  of  George  Hazard  shows  that  he 
possessed  fifteen  of  this  number.  We  have 
the  tradition  of  the  negro  election  day, 
when,  in  imitation  of  their  masters,  one  of 
their  own  number  was  elected  governor; 
and  the  laws  for  the  regulation  of  slaves 


140    NARRAGANSETT  FRIENDS'  MEETING 

show  that  the  number  was  very  consider- 
able. As  early  as  1729  there  was  a  law 
passed  to  allow  a  master  to  manumit  his 
slave  on  deposit  of  ^100  security.  In  1750 
a  law  was  passed  forbidding  the  selling  of 
"  strong  beer,  ale,  cider,  wine,  rum,  brandy, 
or  other  strong  liquor,  to  any  Indian,  Mu- 
latto or  Negro  servant."  To  guard  against 
evasion,  it  was  specified  that  no  person  was 
to  "  presume  to  sell,  give,  truck,  barter  or 
exchange  "  this  liquor  with  a  slave.  Slaves 
were  to  be  within  doors  at  nine  o'clock  at 
night,  or  to  be  "  publickly  whipped  by  the 
conltable  ten  stripes "  for  each  offense. 
They  were  not  allowed  to  keep  "  creaters  " 
in  South  Kingstown.  So  it  is  quite  evident 
that  slave-holding  formed  an  integral  part 
of  the  social  order  of  Friends  in  Narra- 
gansett. 

To  them  came  John  Woolman  in  1748 
and  1760,  stirring  the  meeting  with  his 
preaching,  and  his  private  as  well  as  public 
testimony  against  slavery.  He  and  his 
companions  held  five  meetings  in  the  latter 
year,  when  he  says  he  went  "  through  deep 
exercifes  that  were  mortifying  to  the  crea- 
turely  will.  In  feveral  families  where  we 
lodged  I  felt  an  engagement  on  my  mind 


SLAVERY  141 

to  have  a  conference  with  them  in  private 
concerning  their  flaves."1  John  Pember- 
ton  also  came  during  this  period  probably, 
as  his  letter  indicates.2  These  were  saintly 
men,  well  tried,  and  full  of  faith.  These 
doubtless  did  not  need  the  caution  given 
by  the  Discipline  of  1775,  "to  be  careful 
how  and  what  they  offer  in  prayer,  avoid- 
ing many  words  and  repetitions ;  and  not 
turning  from  Supplication  into  declaration, 
as  though  the  Lord  wanted  information." 
I  have  elsewhere  given  the  history  of  the 
movement  against  slavery  in  part,3  but 
fuller  study  of  the  Records  has  made  fresh 
disclosures.  The  first  recorded  testimony 
against  slavery  is  that  of  Richard  Smith, 
who  presented  a  paper  as  "  his  testimony 
againfl  keeping  Slaves,  and  his  Intention 
to  free  his  negro  Girl,"  dated  the  28th  nmo 
1757.  This  paper  "  he  hath  a  mind  to  lay 
before  the  quarterly  meeting,  all  which  is  re- 
ferred for  further  Confideration." 4  Month 
after  month  passed  and  no  action  was 
taken  upon  it,  but  the  paper  remains  on 
record  "  to  mow  the  reafon  and  make  it 
manifefl  to  mankind  why  that  I  difcharge 

1  Woolman's  Journal,  p.  161.         2  College  Tom,  p.  182. 
8  College  Tom,  pp.  169-1 78.    4  S.  K.  M.  M.  R.  vol.  i.  p.  82. 


142    NARRAGANSETT  FRIENDS'  MEETING 

and  fet  free  my  Negro  garl  named  Jane." 
Then  follows  an  argument  against  slavery, 
based  upon  the  Golden  Rule,  at  the  con- 
clusion of  which  comes  this  personal  state- 
ment :  — 

Sometime  after  I  had  written  this  Dis- 
charge I  had  it  in  Confideration  which 
way  was  proper  to  make  it  Manifeft  & 
Secure  and  it  appeared  to  me  very  pro- 
per to  lay  before  Friends  at  the  prepari- 
tive  meeting,  as  buifmefs  to  the  Monthly 
Meeting,  to  fee  if  the  Monthly  Meeting 
would  think  proper  that  it  might  be  put 
on  Record  or  would  forward  Untill  I 
might  Know  what  might  be  done  by 
Friends  on  this  acct.  for  this  thing  hath 
had  weight  on  my  mind  ever  Since  this 
Girl  was  put  into  my  hands  to  prove 
me  in  this  part  of  Self  Denial  whether 
I  would  be  faithfull  or  not.  Now  my 
Friends  to  tell  you  plainly  Some  Years 
before  this  my  Intent  was  to  have  bought 
Some  Negro ws  flaves  for  to  have  done 
my  work  to  have  Saved  hireing  of  help. 
But  when  I  was  about  buying  them  I 
was  forbidden  by  the  fame  power  that 
now  caufes  me  to  fet  this  Girl  at  Liberty 
for  the  matter  was  fet  before  me  in  a 


SLAVERY  143 

Clear  manner  more  Clear  than  what 
Mortal  Man  could  have  done,  and  There- 
fore I  believe  it  is  not  write  for  me  to 
Shrink  or  hide  in  a  thing  of  fo  great 
Concernment  as  to  give  my  Confent  to 
do  to  others  Contrary  to  what  we  Our 
Selves  would  be  willing  to  be  done  unto 
Our  Selves  if  we  were  in  Slavery  as 
many  of  them  are  at  this  Day  &  under 
Such  Matters  and  Miflreffes  too  as  would 
be  willing  to  be  called  Chrifts  true  fol- 
lowersand  make  a  Profeffion  of  fome  of 
his  Truths  but  if  we  truly  Confider  God 
will  have  no  part  kept  back  for  he  calls 
for  Juftice  and  mercy  and  his  Soul  Loaths 
the  Opprefling  of  the  Inocent  and  poor 
&  helplefs  and  Such  as  have  none  to 
help  and  will  affuredly  avenge  their  caufe 
in  Righteousnefs.  Thefe  things  I  have 
found  on  my  mind  to  lay  before  Friends 
as  a  matter  worth  due  Confideration  and 
fo  lay  it  before  this  Meeting  as  Bufmefs. 
(Signed)  RICHARD  SMITH. 

So  the  principle  involved  in  slavery  was 
very  clearly  stated  as  early  as  I757.1 

In  1762  the  "  Quarterly  and  Yearly  Meet- 

1  Additional  Testimony,  Appendix,  p.  186. 


144    NARRAGANSETT  FRIENDS*  MEETING 

ing  Confirmed  the  Judgement  of  our  Moly 
Meeting  given  againft  Samuel  Rodman  on 
account  of  his  buying  a  negro  Slave.  And 
it  is  the  mind  of  friends  that  there  ought 
to  go  out  a  publick  Teilimony  and  Denial 
of  Samuel  Rodman,"  which  was  referred  to 
the  next  monthly  meeting.  At  the  next 
meeting,  Stephen  Hoxsie  was  appointed  to 
draw  up  a  "  paper  of  frds  Teflimony  of 
Difowning,"  as  it  was  the  "  Sence  and 
Judgement "  of  the  meeting.  Notwith- 
standing this,  in  1765  came  the  Rathbun 
case,  which  was  before  the  meeting  eight 
years.  Having  bought  a  negro  girl,  Joshua 
Rathbun  "  appeared  tender "  when  dealt 
with  for  that  disorder,  and  was  brought  to 
confess  his  error,  as  follows :  — 

Westerly:  27th:  1 2th  m°  1765. 

To  the  monthly  Meeting  of  Friends  to 
be  held  at  Richmond  next 

Dear  Friends.  I  hereby  Acknowledge 
that  I  have  Acted  diforderly  in  purchas- 
ing a  Negro  Slave,  which  diforder  I  was 
Ignorant  of,  at  the  time  of  the  Pur- 
chafe  but  having  converfed  with  Several 
Friends  upon  the  Subject  of  Slavery 
have  gained  a  knowledge  that  heretofore 


SLAVERY  145 

I  was  ignorant  of,  both  as  to  the  Rules 
of  our  Society,  as  well  as  the  nature  & 
inconfiftancy  of  making  Slaves  of  our 
Fellow  Creatures  am  therefore  free,  & 
do  condemn  that  inconfiderate  Act  & 
defire  Friends  to  pafs  it  by,  hoping  that 
I  may  be  preferrd,  from  all  conduct  that 
may  bring  Uneafmefs  upon  Friends  for 
the  future,  am  Willing  likewife  to  take 
the  Advice  of  Friends  both  as  to  the 
bringing  up  &  difcharging  of  the  aforesd 
Negro.1 

JOSHUA  RATHBUN. 

This  evidently  sincere  paper  was  accepted 
by  the  meeting,  and  for  some  time  the  mat- 
ter dropped. 

In  1769  occurs  this  significant  entry:  — 
This  Meeting  moves  the  Quarterly 

Meeting  to  confider  the  propriety  of  the 

latter  part  of  the   loth  Query  which  is 

fent  up  thereto  in  the  Account  from  this 

Meeting.2 

The  tenth  Query  was  the  query  as  to 
slave-holding  among  members.  In  this 
very  year  the  Quarterly  Meeting  proposed 
to  the  Yearly  Meeting  "  fuch  an  amend- 

1  Vol.  i.  p.  171.  2  Ibid.  p.  212. 


146   NARRAGANSETT  FRIENDS'  MEETING 

ment  of  the  Query  of  1760  as  fhould  not 
imply  that  the  holding  of  flaves  was  al- 
lowed."1 It  seems  as  if  this  change  may 
have  come  directly  from  the  South  Kings- 
town meeting.  Thomas  Hazard  had  long 
before  freed  his  slaves,  early  in  the  forties, 
having  refused  to  hold  any.  Richard  Smith 
in  1757  had  borne  his  testimony  against 
slavery.  Samuel  Rodman  in  1762,  and 
Joshua  Rathbun  in  1765,  had  been  dealt 
with,  so  that  the  time  was  coming  when  a 
decisive  movement  could  be  made. 

Such  were  the  conditions  when  in  1771 
Joshua  Rathbun  made  over  his  negro  girl 
to  his  son  for  the  consideration  of  fifty  dol- 
lars. The  money  was  "  made  up  another 
way,"  the  record  says,  the  old  man  evidently 
trying  this  to  salve  his  conscience,  as  he 
had  promised  to  set  the  girl  at  liberty  at  a 
suitable  age.  The  son  was  first  dealt  with, 
and  denied  membership,  because  he 

Encouraged  the  Deteflible  practice  of 
enflaving  Mankind  by  his  takeing  a  bill 
of  sale  of  a  negro  girl  of  his  Father  and 
afterward  Sold  her  fo  that  She  was  car- 
ried out  of  the  Country  notwithftanding 

1  Publications  of  the  R.  /.  Historical  Society f,  Slavery  in 
R.  7.  1755-1776,  W.  D.  Johnston,  p.  148. 


SLAVERY  147 

his  promife  to  his  sd  father  to  Sett  her 

at  Liberty  at  a  Suitable  age.1 

The  father  was  desired  to  try  to  recover 
the  girl,  and  even  advised  to  "  Commince 
and  profecute  "  his  son  "  for  the  Recovery 
of  Damages  upon  a  promis  "  made  by  the 
son,  which  he  failed  to  do. 

The  meeting  held  at  Joshua  Rathbun's 
house  was  ordered  discontinued  in  1771,  as 
he  "  did  not  ftand  Clear  in  his  Teftimony 
for  the  Caufe  of  Truth  as  he  ought  to  have 
done  "  against  Slavery.  But  he  replied  two 
years  later,  during  which  time  he  apparently 
continued  the  meetings,  that  "he  mould 
be  glad  to  take  friends'  Advice  but  hath 
peace  in  holding  faid  Meetings  apprehend- 
ing it  as  he  faid  as  his  duty." 2  His  wife 
was  dealt  with  by  the  Women's  Meeting, 
and  acknowledged  her  offense  in  sitting  in 
a  meeting  out  of  unity,  though  it  was  in 
her  own  house,  and  finally  the  old  man 
was  denied  his  membership. 

Ten  Friends  are  mentioned  in  1771  who 
were  under  dealing  about  their  slaves.  Old 
Dr.  Rodman,  who  lived  by  the  dam  on  the 
Saugatucket  where  Peace  Dale  now  is, 
"  appeared  in  this  meeting,  and  Saith  that 

1  S.  K.  M.  M.  R.  vol.  i.  p.  260.  2  Ibid.  p.  276. 


148    NARRAGANSETT  FRIEND?  MEETING 

he  fhall  not  comply  with  the  Rules  of  the 
Society  Refpecting  his  Slaves  to  Liberate 
them." 1  Some  members  "  appears  of  a  dis- 
pofition  to  comply  with  friends  rules  in 
liberating  their  flaves,"  but  five  Friends, 
among  them  two  women,  one  of  whom 
was  College  Tom's  mother,  Sarah  Hazard, 
widow,  "  did  fhew  the  Contrary  Difpofi- 
tion."  Three  were  denied  membership. 
Sarah  Hazard  must  have  been  converted 
by  her  son,  for  only  one  woman  proved 
obdurate,  and  was  "  noticed "  to  the  Wo- 
men's Meeting.2 

In  the  women's  records,  the  first  mention 
of  "  the  bufmefs  concerning  flaves  "  occurs 
at  the  1 2th  month  Women's  Meeting,  1771. 
It  was  continued  and  reported  upon  for  a 
year,  when  the  paper  of  denial  was  drawn 
up.    The  disowning  of  this  woman  is  dated 
23d  day  of  the  tenth  month,  1772,  and  is 
a  noble  testimony  from  the  Women's  Meet- 
ing.   She  is  denied  her  membership,  as  — 
of  late  it  doth  appear  that  She  hath  Re- 
fufed  to  comply  with   that  part  of   our 
Difcipline  which  is  againft  the  enflaving 
Mankind  a  Practice  very  repugnant  to 
Truth   and    Equity  an    invation   of   the 

1  S.  K.  M.  M.  R.  vol.  i.  p.  245.  2  ma.  p.  245. 


SLAVERY  149 

Natural  Rights  of  Mankind  fubjecting 
them  to  a  ftate  of  Bondage  and  oppres- 
fion  wolly  Inconfiflent  with  the  Spirit 
of  the  Gofple  now  having  dealt  with  her 
According  to  the  order  of  the  Gofple 
in  much  Labour  and  forbearence  that 
the  oppreffed  might  go  Free.  But  me 
Conueth  to  Difobey  the  Truth  and  re- 
luctant to  our  advice  on  its  behalf  We 
have  Denied  her  Memberfhip  in  our 
Society  until  She  return  To  the  Truth 
and  make  Satiffaction  for  her  Tranfgres- 
fion  which  is  our  Sincear  Defire  This 
teftimony  Given  forth  in  behalf  of  the 
Truth  and  againft  Tyranny  &  Oppreffion 
from  our  Monthly  Meeting  of  Women 
Friends  held  at  Richmond  the  23  day  of 
Tenth  month  1772. 

Signed  by  ten  women. 
At  the  4th  monthly  meeting,  1771,  a  com- 
mittee was  appointed  to  treat  with  all  who 
"  poffes  flaves."  They  were  kept  busy  for 
two  years,  and  in  1773  report  that  "they 
dont  find  there  is  any  held  As  Slaves  by 
Frds."1 

Notwithstanding  this  encouraging  entry 
in  the  records,  the  committee  to  visit  slave- 

1  S.K.  M.  M.  /?.vol.  ii.  p.  I. 


150    NARRAGANSETT  FRIENDS"  MEETING 

keepers  was  still  continued,  and  found  a 
little  more  to  do.  A  list  of  emancipated 
slaves  gives  the  names  of  five  liberated  in 
I773,1  and  eight  more  who  were  freed  at 
intervals  till  1 786,  which  was  two  years  after 
the  Emancipation  Act  had  been  passed 
by  the  Rhode  Island  legislature.  But  the 
meeting  had  clearly  declared  its  principles, 
and  stood  boldly  for  liberty. 

It  is  interesting  to  follow  the  course  of 
the  men  denied.  Among  them,  Joshua 
Rathbun  claims  our  sympathy  most  of  all ; 
and  the  following  touching  letter,  written 
two  years  after  his  denial,  is  in  conformity 
with  all  we  can  glean  of  his  character :  — 

ye  12th  Day  of  the  5  month  1775. 
Deare  friends  have  had  a  mind  Ever 
fence  my  Denial  toock  Place  uppon  me 
to  be  under  the  Care  of  friends  yea  with 
great  Defire  at  times:  But  Sea  no  way 
for  it  as  my  mind  Stood :  I  deare  Do  no 
other  way  But  to  be  Honeft  to  what 
Sence  I  had :  it  was  a  great  Crofs  to  me 
to  be  Denied  by  friends  it  was  all  moft 
two  much  for  me  to  beare :  How  Ever  I 
was  Boorn  up  under  it  all :  and  have  not 

1  Appendix,  p.  190. 


SLAVERY  151 

as  yet  fainted :  bleffed  be  God  for  his 
Preferving  Power  that  he  might  in  his 
own  time  give  me  Sight  and  Sence :  and 
at  Lenth :  the  Lord  has  Shewed  me  by 
the  Inftance  of  Eli:  that  I  Should  not 
only  have  advifed :  my  Son :  but  Should 
have  Conftrained  him  to  have  Done  Jus- 
tis  to  the  black  garl :  and  I  Sea  now  I 
Should  have  taken  up  with  the  advife  of 
friends :  in  Proficuting  my  Son,  if  he 
would  not  have  Done  Juftis  with  out : 
and  I  am  Sorey  that  I  Could  not  at  that 
time  have  taken  up  with  the  advife  of 
the  Laft  Committey  to  me  Sent  By 
the  monthly  meating  Namely :  John  Col- 
lins Solomon  Hoxesey  thomas  Wilber  & 
Joseph  Congdon  advifmg  me  to  Defifl 
and  not  hold  no  more  meattings  for 
friends  had  no  Eunity  with  it.  I  Say 
I  am  Sorrey  Seeing  it  was  a  Crofs  to 
the  Difcepline  of  friends  and  as  to  the 
manner  of  my  holding  of  meattings  out 
of  Eunity  I  freely  Condem  :  and  as  to 
the  matter  Leave  me  to  Stand  or  fall 
to  my  own  mailer:  and  I  Delire  that 
friends  may  Pafs  it  by  and  take  me 
under  there  Chriftion  Ceare:  I  Never 
Saw  as  I  now  Sea  till  ye  7th  of  this  In- 


152    NARRAGANSETT  FRIENDS^  MEETING 

ftant:  from  one  that  Defiers  to  travel  no 
fafter  then  the  Light  Difcovers  and  to 
Comply  with  Every  manyfefl  of  it :  Who 
allfo  Defires  to  be  admitted  a  member  of 
your  Sofiatry. 

JOSHUA  RATHBUN 

It  is  a  comfort  to  find  the  following  re- 
port, which  was  duly  recorded,  and  to 
know  that  the  old  man  was  doubtless  rein- 
stated :  — 

According  to  appointment  We  have 
had  an  oppeturnity  With  Joshua  Rath- 
bun  Refpecting  his  Requeft  to  be  Re- 
ftored  again  to  Membership  With  friends 
and  he  appears  to  be  in  a  Good  Degree 
Sincere  in  his  Requeft  Which  We  think 
Well  of  Granting  him  all  Which  We 
Submit  to  the  M°  Meeting  Next  to  be 
held  at  Richmond. 

PETER  HOXSIE 
THOMAS  WILBUR 
WILLIAM  J.  KNOWLES 
JOSEPH  CONGDON 

He  died,  aged  77  years,  the  i4th  of  7th 
month,  1 80 1,  "  of  a  very  diftreffmg  Diforder 


SLAVERY  153 

in  his  Stomach,  which  he  endured  with 
much  Fortitude  and  Refignation  and  which 
terminated  his  Life  the  Evening  of  the 
fame  day."1 

As  late  as  1800,  Joshua  Rathbun  the  son 
desired  to  be  restored,  and  was  favorably 
reported  to  the  meeting,  as  he  "  appears  to 
be  in  a  Good  Degree  Sincere  in  Condemn- 
ing his  Mis-Conduct."  He  also  "faid  he 
Was  Willing  to  do  all  he  Could  to  Relieve 
the  Negro  Girl  from  Slavery  that  he  was 
Denyed  for  Selling."  And  in  1807  comes 
a  letter  from  Benjamin  Rodman,  who  was 
denied  in  I772.2  He  was  Dr.  Thomas 
Rodman's  son,  and  writes  to  the  meet- 
ing:— 

South  Kingstown  the  26th  of  2d  Mo 

1807. 

In  confequence  of  Friends  dealling  (as 
I  then  thought,  too  hardly  with  my  fa- 
ther) many  years  ago,  refpecting  his 
keeping  of  Slaves,  which  I  was  so  un- 
guarded as  to  refent,  and  to  refufe  to  Set 
at  liberty  thofe  in  my  poffeffion,  which 
have  fince  all  been  liberated  by  me, 

1  Births,  Marriages,  and  Deaths,  p.  146. 
*  Ibid.  p.  265. 


154    NARRAGANSETT  FRIENDS'  MEETING 

which  conduct  of  mine  (in  refuting  to 
free  them  at  that  time)  I  am  forry  for 
and  defire  friends  to  pafs  it  by  and  again 
admit  me  as  a  member  of  Society. 

BENJ.  RODMAN 

To  the  Mo.  Meeting  of  friends 
next  to  be  Holden  at 
Richmond. 

These  papers  really  show  the  power  of 
the  meeting.  To  Joshua  Rathbun  it  came 
as  a  bitter  trial  to  be  denied ;  to  the  other 
men,  in  their  way,  either  as  a  discredit 
or  a  misfortune,  which  years  after  was  re- 
membered, and  repaired  if  possible.  It  was 
the  power  of  public  opinion  about  them 
—  the  consensus  of  opinion  of  the  best 
and  most  honorable  men  they  knew  —  that 
they  valued,  as  well  as  the  doctrine  of  the 
church  they  loved.  So,  in  a  formative 
period  of  American  history,  these  little  self- 
governing  bodies  of  men,  scattered  in  re- 
mote rural  districts,  bound  together  by  ties 
of  love  and  belief,  and  a  common  purpose 
of  daily  life,  —  these  little  meetings  had  vast 
influence  in  training  men  to  public  affairs, 
in  shaping  the  true  democratic  policy  to- 
ward which  the  country  was  tending.  The 


SLAVERY  155 

meeting  might  seem  isolated ;  but  while 
such  men  as  John  Woolman  and  John 
Pemberton  came  to  it,  while  Mary  Kirby 
from  England  crossed  the  water  to  visit  it, 
it  was  not  out  of  communication  with  the 
great  world.  Out  to  that  world  it  sent  i^ts 
own  ministers,  Peter  Davis,  Thomas  Robin- 
son, and  Patience  Greene,  who,  under  her 
married  name  of  Patience  Brayton,  could 
not  have  forgotten  the  meeting  of  her 
youth.  The  very  fact  of  the  beautifully 
printed  London  Epistles  coming  yearly 
was  an  education,  and  the  books  which  the 
meeting  subscribed  for  made  many  a  good 
Friend's  library.  It  was  the  existence  of 
many  such  well-governed  and  self-sustain- 
ing bodies  as  the  South  Kingstown  monthly 
meeting  which  made  possible  our  Revolu- 
tion, paradoxical  as  this  may  seem,  since 
any  resort  to  arms  was  so  severely  dis- 
countenanced. Here,  in  small,  a  truly  re- 
presentative government  was  in  operation. 


VIII 
THE   REVOLUTION 


VIII 

THE  middle  of  the  eighteenth  century 
certainly  marked  the  height  of  the  greatest 
power  and  usefulness  of  the  South  Kings- 
town meeting.  The  long  agitation  over 
the  question  of  slavery,  which  began  as 
early  as  1742,  at  the  time  of  Thomas  Haz- 
ard's (son  of  Robert)  marriage ;  which  was 
discussed  in  John  Woolman's  powerful  ser- 
mons, and  personal  pleadings  with  masters 
and  mistresses  in  1 748  ;  to  which  Patience 
Bray  ton  and  Richard  Smith  bore  testimony 
in  the  fifties,  —  was  finally  settled  in  meet- 
ing in  1773.  This  was  a  formative  period. 
A  question  affecting  the  lives  of  so  many 
persons,  masters  as  well  as  servants,  natu- 
rally stimulated  thought ;  and,  though  the 
meeting  was  in  a  little  corner  of  the  world, 
it  was  not  left  without  leaders  from  abroad, 
as  well  as  those  developed  within  its  own 
borders. 

Two  Friends  in  especial  throw  light  upon 
this  period,  —  the  diary  of  Jeffrey  Watson, 
beginning  in  1640  and  ending  1783;  and 


160   NARRAGANSETT  FRIENDS'  MEETING 

that  of  "  Nailor  Tom  "  Hazard,  from  1778 
to  1840,  the  two  covering  a  period  of  one 
hundred  years  of  observation  by  men  of 
unusual  capacity  and  intelligence.  Both 
these  men  were  Quakers  by  birth  and  train- 
ing. Jeffrey  Watson  was  the  son  of  John 
Watson,  Esq.,  the  first  child  born  in  Nar- 
ragansett  after  the  Indian  War,1  his  obitu- 
ary notice  declares,  that  is,  in  1676.  "  He 
was  blefl  with  more  than  a  common  fhare 
of  good  fenfe,  and  was  early  employed  in 
many  important  affairs."  At  his  death,  at 
the  age  of  ninety-seven  years,  he  left  one 
hundred  and  thirty-eight  descendants,  a 
great  part  of  whom  followed  him  to  the 
grave.  "  He  was  a  Loving  Husband,  a 
Tender  father,  a  juft  Magiftrate,  a  good 
neighbor,  a  mild  Mafler,  and  an  Honeft 
Man."  Our  ancient  friend,  Peter  Davis, 
preached  at  his  funeral,  also  Stephen  Rich- 
mond and  Robert  Knowles.  His  son,  Jef- 
frey Watson,  inherited  many  of  his  father's 
good  qualities,  and  seems  to  have  had  a 
special  relish  for  preaching.  In  1743  he 
records  having  heard  at  Friends'  meeting 
"  the  ablefl  man  that  I  had  ever  heard  in 

1  I  am  indebted  to  Mrs.  C.  E.  Robinson  for  a  copy  of 
this  valuable  diary. 


THE  REVOLUTION  l6l 

my  life."     He  mentions  all  the  special  meet 
ings  of  Friends,  as  in  1755  :  — 

I  was  at  the  Quaker  Meeting  and  there 

was   two  Old    England   and   one   Filly- 

delphia  man  fpoke  exceedingly  able. 

Again  in  the  same  year :  — 

I  was  at  the  Quaker  Meeting  to  hear 

Sam1  Fothergill.    There  was  a  boundance 

of  people  the  minifter  Exceedingly  Able 

and  a  great  fcolar  Difcourced  in  a  very 

High  Stile. 

Watson  also  went  to  the  Baptist  meeting. 
Once  it  was  held  in  the  woods,  on  a  rainy 
day,  but  Gardner  Thurston  preached  a  very 
able  sermon  from  Joshua,  24th  chapter  and 
1 6th  verse.  Again,  at  the  Baptist  meet- 
ing, Samuel  Albro  is  recorded  as  exceed- 
ingly able,  preaching  from  the  text,  "  Pre- 
pare to  meet  thy  God  o  Ifreal." 

Thomas  Hazard  is  mentioned  as  a 
preacher;  in  1791  the  text  of  his  funeral 
sermon  for  John  Watson,  senior,  is  given : 
"The  Grace  of  God  has  appeared  to  all 
Mankind." 

All  the  prominent  Friends'  funerals  are 
spoken  of.  They  departed  this  life  with 
"  Much  Lamentation  "  he  often  adds.  Of 
the  other  preachers,  Hoxsie  is  often  men- 


162    NARRAGANSETT  FRIENDS'  MEETING 

tioned,  the  good  clerk  of  the  meeting. 
Whitman  preached  from  the  ever  comfort- 
ing text,  "  Bleffed  are  the  dead  who  die 
in  the  Lord."  Patience  Greene  preached 
often  in  1756  and  1757,  and  Stephen  Rich- 
mond later.  So  the  meeting  was  well  sup- 
plied with  its  own  ministers. 

Some  hint  of  the  state  of  the  currency  is 

given  in  June,  1757,  when,  at  Tower  Hill, 

"  they  was  a  letting  bank  money."     After  a 

few  days'  consideration,  on  the  Qth  of  June 

Watson  went  to  Tower  Hill  "  to  Take  of 

the  Bank  money."     This  was  one  of  the 

issues  of  paper  money  which  Rhode  Island 

had   made   at  intervals   from    1710.     The 

premium  was  enormous ;  the  issue  of  1757 

is  quoted  at  £$  i$s.  for  one  Spanish  milled 

dollar,  while  the  next  year  the  value  of  the 

silver  dollar  rose  to  £6  in  old  tenor  bills.1 

In  1761  comes  an  interesting  record:  — 

Jan.    19.      This    Day   the    Prince    of 

Wales  was  proclaimed  King  of  England 

by  the  name  of  George  the  Third  by  the 

Grace  of  God  King  over  Great  Britain 

France    and    Ireland,   Defender  of    the 

Faith  &c. 

There  were  still  some  years  when  the 

1  R.  I.  Colonial  Records,  vol.  vi.  p.  361. 


THE  REVOLUTION  163 

orderly  proceedings  of  the  meeting  were 
quietly  carried  on,  but  there  were  signs 
of  the  coming  storm.  The  debased  cur- 
rency was  in  itself  a  source  of  danger.  In- 
many  instances  barter  was  resorted  to  again, 
and  contracts  had  to  provide  in  what  sort 
of  money  they  should  be  paid,  since  every 
year  saw  increased  inflation.  Corn,  which 
in  1751  sold  at  twenty-five  shillings  a  bushel, 
gradually  rose  till  in  the  early  sixties  it 
reached  its  maximum  of  one  hundred  shil- 
lings. Careful  men  of  business  kept  their 
accounts  in  old  tenor  and  lawful  money, 
with  endless  trouble  and  confusion.  No 
wonder  Jeffrey  Watson  often  records  try- 
ing to  settle  accounts,  "  but  could  not  do 
it,"  and  his  joy  when  he  has  finally  agreed 
with  a  certain  creditor,  and  makes  the  re- 
cord, "  fettled  accounts  for  ever  and  ever 
amen  "!  Then  came  the  stirring  days  of  the 
Revolution.  In  Narragansett  the  echoes  of 
the  shot  that  rung  around  the  world  were 
also  heard.  It  is  interesting  to  find  some 
of  the  earliest  advice  to  Friends  was  in  re- 
gard "  to  receiving  and  paffing  the  late  pa- 
per Currency  that  is  made  and  paffed  in 
thefe  Colonies  Iffued  Expreffly  for  the 
purpofe  of  Carrying  on  War  it  is  recom- 


1 64    NARRAGANSETT  FRIENDS'  MEETING 

mended  to  friends  Serious  Confideration 
and  Obfervation."  1  This  was  given  from 
Newport  in  ist  month,  1776.  Friends  in 
the  summer  of  that  same  year  were  advised 
to  "  enter  deeply  into  themfelves  and  not 
implicitely  follow  the  fentiments  of  others, 
but  fee  that  their  proceedings  therein  are 
in  the  liberty  of  the  Truth."2  So  powerful 
were  the  Quakers  in  the  Colony  that  the 
General  Assembly  passed  an  act  in  June 
of  the  same  year  entitled  "  An  Act  for  the 
relief  of  perfons  of  tender  confciences,  and 
for  preventing  their  being  burthened  with 
millitary  duty." 3 

The  meeting  therefore  drew  up  a  minute 
instructing  Friends  how  to  act  under  the 
circumstances :  — 

This  meeting  is  informed  that  through 
late  Laws  Friends  are  fubjected  to  fome 
penalties  on  certain  Requefitions  which 
they  may  be  releafed  and  excufed  from 
by  Producing  a  certificate  to  the  chief 
Officers  from  our  Clerk  Setting  forth  that 
they  are  members  of  the  Religious  So- 
ciety called  Quakers,  therefore  the  clerk 

1  S.  K.  M.  M.  R.  vol.  ii.  p.  55. 

2  R.  I.  Meeting  Records,  1 776. 
8  R.  I.  C.  R.  vol.  vii.  p.  568. 


THE  REVOLUTION  165 

is  directed  to  make  and  fign  Certificates 
to  our  members  applying   for  the  fame 
when  no  diforder  or  irregularty  doth  ap- 
pear and  every  fuch  applying  member  is 
earnestly  defired  to  Examine  and  fee  that 
nothing  be  done  out  of  the  truth  that  our 
Teftimony  may  be  preferved  pure  and 
no  reproach  brought  upon  friends.1 
A  meeting  for  Sufferings  was  early  ar- 
ranged, and  members  who  had  suffered  on 
account  of  military  service  were  instructed 
to  send  "  the  account  and  prices  there  of  in 
Value  of  sd  Sufferings  to  the  clerk  of  this 
meeting  and  for  the  Clerk  to  Tranfmit  An 
ace*  to  the  meeting  for  Sufferings." 2 

But  the  war  began  to  press  home. 
Thomas  B.  Hazard,  called  "  Nailor  Tom," 
in  his  diary  begins  to  note  the  movement 
of  vessels  with  an  anxious  eye.  From  the 
ridge  of  Tower  Hill  the  bay  lay  in  plain 
sight,  and  Newport  was  always  an  impor- 
tant point.  He  writes  :  — 

Jan.  30,  1779.  The  Regulars  landed 
and  took  two  boats  out  of  the  river.  4 
sail  went  upland  from  Newport.  Some 
snow.  One  ship  went  into  Newport. 

1  S.  K.  M.  M.  R.  vol.  ii.  p.  51. 

2  Ibid. 


166    NARRAGANSETT  FRIENDS'  MEETING 

The  next  month  "  Davis  privateer  went 
eastward ;  "  March  2oth,  "  a  sloop  sailed  out 
of  Newport  about  sunset."  May  8,  "  Regu- 
lars landed  in  Point  Judith."  Nailor  Tom 
was  a  man  of  great  conversational  power,  if 
tradition  is  to  be  trusted.  He  could  pic- 
ture a  scene  most  vividly,  and  his  conversa- 
tion was  enlivened  by  flashes  of  wit  and 
humor ;  so  that  for  him  this  last  brief  entry 
doubtless  called  up  the  whole  scene,  and  he 
felt  again  all  the  commotion  of  the  country- 
side. But,  fortunately  for  us,  Jeffrey  Wat- 
son gives  a  fuller  account  of  this  proceeding. 
The  entry  in  his  diary  is  May  9,  1779:  — 

John  Gardner  Jun  was  Taken  at  Point 
Judah  with  his  9  workmen  by  the  Land 
Pirates  who  Joyned  the  Miniftered  party 
to  burn  plunder  and  Deftroy  the  Inhab- 
itants of  North  America  and  took  ye 
faid  Gardner's  eftate  from  him  nine  oxen 
Twenty  fix  cows  with  their  calves  and 
about  forty  five  fheep  with  their  lambs 
and  caryed  to  Newport  the  8  Day  of 
May  1779  and  kept  him  prifoner  until 
Oct  15  1779.  Job  Watfon  had  about 
feven  hundred  fheep  with  their  lambs 
caryed  of  at  the  same  time  and  some 
cattle.  June  25.  Land  pirates  Landed 


THE  REVOLUTION  l6/ 

again  of  Point  Judah  and  caryed  away 
from  John  Gardner  between  two  and 
three  hundred  wait  of  cheefe  two  lambs 
and  fome  of  his  wifes  wearing  clofe  and 
fome  other  fmall  things  and  from  Job 
Watfon  two  negro  men  and  four  white 
men  that  was  at  work  for  him.  Gorton 
was  feen  this  day  in  a  Bean  field  near  by 
where  they  landed. 

Nailor  Tom  makes  two  or  three  entries 
that  same  month.  June  3d,  "  Craddock  was 
taken  in  his  fifh  boat  by  the  Privateers- 
men."  The  6th,  "  Regulars  landed  and 
took  Samuel  Congdon."  The  8th,  "The 
Regulars  burnt  two  houfes  laft  night."  The 
1 2th  there  was  an  "alarm  in  the  night." 
So  the  countryside  had  its  share  of  dis- 
turbance and  tumult. 

Jeffrey  Watson  makes  an  interesting 
entry  in  1781 :  — 

March  6  General  Wafhington  Rode  by 
our  Houfe  with  about  Twenty  Soldiers 
for  a  guard  about  ten  o'clock. 

He  was  born  in  Virginia  in  the  county 
of  Weftmoreland  the  eleventh  day  of 
February  1732.  Had  a  Col's  commiflion 
at  nineteen  years  of  age  was  taken  Pris- 
oner by  the  French  and  Indians  and 


168    NARRAGANSETT  FRIENDS'  MEETING 

given  Liberty  on  a  Parol  was  exchanged 
when  Gen.  Braddock  was  Defeated  near 
Dequefne  in  the  year  1755. 
The    meeting    records    have    occasional 
references  to  dealings  with  members  who 
acted  "in  the  Quality  of  a  Soldier."     As 
early  as  the   27th  of   5th  month,    1776,  a 
young  man  is  reported  who  had  enlisted  and 
gone  into  the  Millitary  service  which  con- 
duct being  Inconfiflant  with  the  Princi- 
ples of  Truth  which  we  profefs  and  con- 
trary to  the  Teftimony  which  we  as  a 
people   have  always  bourn,  Wee  there- 
fore Deny  him  remaining  any  Longer  a 
Member  of  our  Society.1 
Other  dealings  with   delinquents  follow. 
One  man  who  paid  a  war  tax  was  labored 
with,  as  this  was  contrary  to  the  "  General 
teftimony  againft  contributing  toward  carry- 
ing on  War."     Another  member  is  denied 
for  "  hireing  such  eftates  as  are  faid  to  be 
confifcated."2     But  the  general  conduct  of 
affairs  was  not  apparently  interrupted.    On 
the  very  same  page  on  which  this  political 
offense  is  recorded,  equal  space,  if  not  more, 
is  given  to  the  consideration  of  a  man  who 
married  again  within  four  months  of  his 

1  S.  K.  M.  M.  R.  vol.  ii.  p.  63.  2  Ibid.  p.  103. 


THE  REVOLUTION  169 

wife's  death,  and,  further,  "that  the  said 
John  has  lately  joined  with  ye  people  called 
Seperators  in  their  worfhip  fo  far  as  to 
Stand  up  with  his  Hatt  off  in  time  of  their 
praying." 

Another  good  Friend  was  denied  because 
he  bought  some  books  at  a  vendue,  taken 
from  a  vessel  which  was  a  prize  of  war,  al- 
though he  pleaded  that  he  thought  "  his 
motive  being  to  Reftore  the  moffc  Valuable 
Book  purchafed  to  the  Right  Owner  was  a 
Mitigation  of  his  Tranfgreffion." 1 

The  3ist  of  8th  month,  1778,  the  monthly 
meeting  was  informed  that  the  old  meet- 
ing-house "has  been  lately  occupied  as  a 
Hofpital  for  the  fick  lately  landed  out  of 
the  French  fleet  and  greatly  Damaged  and 
likewife  the  pale  and  board  fences  wholly 
deftroyed." :  A  committee  was  therefore 
appointed  "  to  apply  to  the  Barrack  Mas- 
ter, (and  others  whofe  right  and  bufmefs  it 
may  be)  requefting  the  reparation  "  of  the 
house  and  fences. 

Young  men  were  drafted,  and  others 
hired  to  go  as  substitutes ;  but  in  general 
the  "  labour  for  their  recovery  "  proved  in- 
effectual. In  1780  comes  an  entry  that 

1  S.  K.  M.  M.  R.  vol.  ii.  p.  132.  2  Ibidt  p>  IO9< 


170   NARRAGANSETT  FRIENDS*  MEETING 

throws  more  light.  A  matter  came  up 
against  a  man  who  had  resided  in  Newport 
for  several  years,  and  "  the  Communications 
with  the  main  being  Obftructed  Untill  late 
laft  Fall  by  its  being  a  Britifh  Garifon  and 
fince  the  Evacuation  the  Severity  of  the 
Seafon  and  other  Impediments  hath  hitherto 
prevented  the  Committee  appointed  from 
Treating  with  him." l 

During  this  time  the  agreement  from  the 
meeting  for  Sufferings  in  Providence,  of 
which  Thomas  Hazard,  son  of  Robert,  was 
a  member,  to  raise  funds  for  a  school  by 
subscription,  was  received,  and  the  matter 
duly  reported  upon.  The  temperance  ques- 
tion was  also  coming  into  prominence,  and 
Friends  bore  their  testimony  against  per- 
sons who  "  drinked  to  excefs,"  and  those 
who  "  fold  Spiritous  Liquor  by  the  fmall 
quantity  without  a  Licenfe." 2 

Attending  a  horse-race  also  came  within 
the  limits  of  disorderly  conduct,  and  the 
lines  of  Friends  were  drawn  even  more 
strictly  in  this  time  of  trial  and  disorganiza- 
tion. In  1775  a  committee  was  appointed 
"  to  revifit  such  perfons  as  Chofe  to  be  con- 
fidered  as  members  of  our  Society,"  and 

1  S.  K.  M.  M.  R.  vol.  ii.  p.  149.  2  Ibid.  p.  170. 


THE  REVOLUTION  I/I 

they  were  to  be  informed  "  that  it  is  the 
Defire  of  this  meeting  that  they  duly  attend 
all  the  meetings  both  of  worfhip  and  Dis- 
cipline, and  alfso  Maintain  Our  Chriflian 
Teilimony  in  every  Branch  thereof." 

.  Attending  Jemima  Wilkinson's  meetings 
was  a  cause  of  stumbling,  for  which  a  paper 
of  contrition  had  to  be  presented.2 

South  Kingstown  had  a  "  concern,"  in 
1781,  "to  take  under  further  confidera- 
tion  the  Neceffity  of  Bearing  a  Teilimony 
againfl  War  &  Fighting  and  alfo  our  Tes- 
timony for  Plainnefs  of  Speech  and  Ap- 
parrel."3 

So  the  careful  regulation  of  the  daily  life 
of  Friends  continued.  It  was  an  important 
influence  in  a  formative  period  of  our  his- 
tory. The  "  good  order  of  friends  "  had  to 
be  strictly  observed.  Each  little  meeting 
had  its  definite  relation  to  the  larger  meet- 
ings. The  overseers  were  appointed  by 
the  monthly  meeting  to  take  charge  not 
only  of  "  Sleping  and  all  other  indecencies  " 
in  the  meeting  itself,  but  of  conduct ;  and 
any  deviation  from  the  strict  rule  of  Friends 
was  reported  to  the  preparative  meeting, 

1  S.  K.  M.  M.  R.  vol.  ii.  p.  42.  «  Ibid.  p.  171. 

3  Ibid.  p.  172. 


1/2    NARRAGANSETT  FRIENDS'  MEETING 

which  made  its  returns  to  the  monthly 
meeting.  This  meeting  could  refer  dif- 
ficult cases  to  the  quarterly  meeting,  or  ad- 
vice could  come  from  the  quarterly  meet- 
ing. The  quarterly  meeting  in  turn  could 
appeal  to  the  yearly  meeting,  the  final 
source  of  authority.  This  government  fos- 
tered independence  of  thought  and  speech, 
for  it  rested  upon  the  consent  of  the  gov- 
erned ;  members  were  only  "  fuch  as  chofe 
to  be  confidered  friends."  The  papers  of 
contrition  all  ask  to  be  "  received  again  into 
the  loving  care  of  friends."  It  was  a  vol- 
untary submission  to  what  each  man  con- 
sidered best  and  right. 

But  the  great  service  Friends  rendered 
was  a  spiritual  service.  We,  who  have  to 
trace  the  history  of  a  single  meeting  in 
records  which  are  of  necessity  accounts  of 
delinquencies,  may  be  apt  to  forget  the 
great  principle  for  which  they  stood,  — 
"  the  light  of  Truth  within  me,"  as  the  old 
testimonies  phrase  it.  It  was  the  doctrine 
of  the  indwelling  Spirit  which  gave  those 
men  their  power.  In  an  age  of  formalism, 
when  true  religion  languished  and  bigotry 
still  reigned,  George  Fox  proclaimed  this 
doctrine.  No  wonder  he  was  misunder- 


THE  REVOLUTION  1/3 

stood.  No  wonder  that  even  such  a  man 
as  Roger  Williams,  with  his  bold  teaching 
of  freedom  of  different  consciences  from 
inforcement,  shrank  from  this  still  bolder 
assertion  of  the  divine  light  and  truth 
dwelling  in  each  soul.  To  him  this  seemed 
a  blasphemous  assumption.  And  indeed, 
in  the  freedom  in  which  the  early  Friends 
rejoiced,  they  did  carry  their  conduct  to 
extremes.  In  protesting  against  outward 
forms,  they  sometimes  offended  the  de- 
cencies of  life.  But  in  the  eighteenth 
century  these  eccentricities  had  in  large 
measure  disappeared.  Thomas  Hazard, 
the  Hoxsies,  Collins,  and  the  other  promi- 
nent Friends  of  the  meeting  were  grand- 
sons of  the  men  who  heard  George  Fox 
preach  in  Justice  Bull's  house  on  Tower 
Hill.  The  meeting  was  settled  and  in 
order.  They  had  the  tradition  of  piety  and 
right  living  behind  them;  they  knew  the 
truth  which  had  made  them  free.  The 
churches  around  them  were  still  in  bondage 
to  the  minister.  Episcopacy  was  struggling 
for  a  foothold  in  the  New  World,  and  here 
was  an  organized  representative  govern- 
ment fully  equipped  for  work,  and  with  the 
vital  spark  of  life. 


174    NARRAGANSETT  FRIENDS'  MEETING 

It  had  fought  the  battle  of  emancipation. 
For  years  it  quietly  worked  with  its  mem- 
bers, until  long  before  the  act  of  abolition 
in  Rhode  Island,  passed  in  1 784,  the  South 
Kingstown  meeting  was  clear  in  its  testi- 
mony against  the  "  deteftable  practife  of  en- 
flaving  Mankind."  It  stood  for  temperance 
in  all  things,  —  in  its  rebuke  of  intoxication, 
in  its  sobriety  of  speech  and  behavior,  in  dis- 
countenancing unseemly  amusements.  If 
"  dancing  and  vain  mirth  "  at  weddings  were 
counted  among  these,  we  must  remember 
the  license  of  the  times,  and  how  seldom 
these  recreations  were  kept  within  proper 
bounds.  It  stood  for  education.  Books 
were  subscribed  for.  Fox's  "  Journal,"  and 
"  Barclay's  Appology  now  printing  at  Phil- 
adelphia," was  sent  for.  Sewall's  "  History 
of  Friends,"  "  Piety  promoted,"  the  "  reprint 
of  the  Holy  Bible,"  are  all  mentioned ;  and 
when  the  school  was  established,  in  1781, 
South  Kingstown  took  its  share. 

It  'stood  for  equal  rights  of  men  and 
women.  Many  a  minute  closes,  "  The 
women's  Meeting  being  in  unity  there  in." 
This  equality  was  based  on  a  broad  and 
firm  foundation,  the  men's  meeting  "  not 
Deliring  the  Preheminence  where  Truth  ad- 


THE  REVOLUTION  175 

mits  of  none  But  believing  that  both  Male 
&  female  are  all  one  in  Chrift  Jefus."1  So 
the  women  had  training  in  independent 
thought  and  action.  To  them,  questions 
of  conduct  were  often  referred:  they  had, 
as  women  always  must  have,  charge  of  the 
aged  and  the  poor.  They  themselves 
treated  with  women  who  held  slaves,  and 
were  thoroughly  competent  to  take  care  of 
their  own  meeting.  Elizabeth  Kirby  and 
Patience  Greene  were  preachers  held  in 
honor  by  the  whole  meeting,  who  traveled, 
the  first  from  England  and  the  latter  to 
England,  speaking  the  message  which  was 
delivered  to  them,  "  according  to  the  mea- 
sure of  their  ability."  These  meetings  had 
an  important  share  in  preparing  the  coun- 
try for  self-government.  The  man  second 
only  to  Washington  himself  belonged  to 
the  Greenwich  meeting,  to  which  the  Nar- 
ragansett  meetings  also  belonged  until  1743. 
Who  can  doubt  that  the  training  in  ad- 
ministration, as  well  as  in  high  principle 
and  true  courage,  stood  Nathaniel  Greene 
in  good  stead  in  his  eventful  career  ?  The 
habit  of  plain  speaking  and  righteous  deal- 
ing gives  tremendous  power ;  and  when  to 

1  S.  K.  M.  M.  R.,  vol.  i.  p.  235. 


I?6    NARRAGANSETT  FRIENDS'*  MEETING 

that  is  added  a  true  recognition  of  Divine 
guidance,  a  constant  turning  to  that  Inner 
light  of  Truth  the  possession  of  which  is 
the  birthright  of  every  child  of  God,  we 
should  expect  heroes  from  such  a  nurture. 
It  was  a  high  ideal  that  those  just  men  set 
before  themselves,  and  an  ideal  which  led 
to  practical  results  in  ways  they  could  not 
approve.  The  same  freedom  they  taught 
their  sons,  the  same  liberty  they  claimed 
for  themselves,  led  to  the  throwing  off  of 
British  rule,  and,  through  the  "war  and 
carnal  fightings  "  they  so  deeply  deplored, 
to  that  larger  liberty  in  which  a  new  ex- 
periment in  civilization  could  begin. 


APPENDIX 


A 
Quakers  Sea-Journal 

Being  a  True 

RELATION 

of  a  Voyage  to 

NEW  ENGLAND 

Performed  by  Robert  Fowler  of  the  Town  of 

Burlington  in  Torkfhire  in  the 

Tear  1658 


London  Printed  for  Francis  Coffenet  at 
the  Anchor  &  Mariner  in 
Tower-Street     Anno  1659 


A  true  Relation  of  the  Voyage  undertaken  by  me 
ROBERT  FOWLER,  with  my  fmall  Vejfel  called 
the  WOODHOUSE  but  performed  by  the  Lord 
like  as  he  did  NOAH'S  Ark,  wherein  he  Jhut  up 
a  few  righteous  perfons,  and  landed  them  as 
fafe,  even  as  at  the  Hill  Ararat. 

The  true  Difcourfe  taken  as  follow  eth : 

THIS  Vejfel  was  appointed  for  this  fervice 
from  the  beginning,  as  I  have  often  had 
it  manifefted  unto  me,  that  it  was  faid 
within  me  feveral  times,  Thou  hath  her 
not  for  nothing,  and  alfo  New  England  prefented 
before  me ;  alfo  when  Jhe  was  finifhed  and 
fraughted,  and  made  to  Sea,  contrary  to  my  will, 
was  brought  to  London,  when  fpeaking  touching 
this  matter  to  Gerrard  Roberts,  and  others,  who 
confirmed  the  matter  in  behalf  of  the  Lord,  that  it 
mujl  befo  ;  yet  entring  into  reafoning  and  letting 
in  temptations  and  hardjhips,  and  the  lofs  of  my 
life,  wife  and  children,  with  the  enjoyments  of  all 
earthly  things,  it  brought  me  as  low  as  the  grave, 
and  laid  me  as  one  dead,  as  to  the  things  of  God, 
but  by  his  Injlrument  G.  F.  was  I  refrejhed  and 
raifed  up  again,  which  before  that  it  was  much 
contrary  to  my  felf,  that  I  could  as  willingly  have 
died,  as  have  gone,  but  by  the  Jlrength  of  God  I 
was  made  willing  to  do  his  will ;  yea,  the  cus- 
toms and  fajhions  of  the  CuJlom-House  could  not 
Jlop  me :  Jlill  was  I  ajfaulted  with  the  Enemy, 
who  preffed  from  me  my  fervants,fo  that  for  this 


APPENDIX  l8l 

long  Voyage  we  had  but  two  men  and  three  boys, 
bejides  my  f elf.  Upon  the  fir/I  day  of  the  fourth 
Moneth  received  I  the  Lords  fervants  aboard,  who 
came  with  a  mighty  hand  and  an  outftreched  arm 
with  them,fo  that  with  courage  we  fet  Say  I  and 
came  into  the  Downs  the  fecond  day,  where  oiir 
dearly  beloved  W.  D.  with  Mich.  Tomfon  came 
aboard,  and  in  them  we  were  much  refrejhed,  and 
after  recommending  us  to  the  grace  of  God,  we 
lanched  forth :  Again  reafon  entered  upon  me, 
and  thoughts  rofe  in  me  to  have  gone  to  the 
Admiral,  and  have  made  my  complaint  for  the 
want  of  my  fervants  and  a  Convoy,  from  which 
thing  I  was  withholden  by  that  hand  which  was 
my  helper:  Shortly  after  the  South  winde  blew 
a  little  hard,  fo  that  it  caufed  ^^s  to  put  in  at 
Portsmouth,  where  I  was  furnifhed  with  choice  of 
men,  according  to  one  of  the  Captains  words  to  me, 
That  I  might  have  enough  for  money,  but  he  faid 
my  Veffel  was  fo  fmall,  he  would  not  go  the  Voyage 
for  her.  Certain  days  we  lay  there,  wherein  the 
Minifters  of  Chrift  were  not  idle,  but  went  forth 
and  gathered  flicks,  and  kindled  a  fire,  and  left  it 
burning ;  alfo  feveral  friends  came  aboard  and 
vijited  us,  in  which  we  were  refreJJted:  Again  we 
lanched  from  thence  about  the  Eleventh  day,  and 
was  put  back  again  into  South  Yarmouth,  where 
we  went  afhore,  and  infome  meafure  did  the  like  ; 
alfo  we  met  with  three  pretty  large  Jhips,  which 
were  for  the  New  found  Land,  who  did  accom- 
pany us  about  50  leagues,  but  might  have  done 
JOO,  if  they  had  not  feared  the  Men  of  War,  but 


182  APPENDIX 

for  efcaping  them  they  took  to  the  Northwards, 
and  left  us  without  hope  of  help  to  the  outward, 
which  before  our  parting  it  was  Jhewed  to  H.  N. 
early  in  the  morning,  that  they  were  nigh  unto  us 
that  fought  our  lives,  and  called  unto  me>  and  told 
me,  butfaid  he,  thus  faith  the  Lord,  you  shall  be 
carry ed  away  as  in  a  Mift,  and  prefently  zve  es- 
pied a  great  Ship  making  up  towards  us,  and  the 
three  great  Ships  were  much  afraid  and  tacked 
about  with  what  fpeed  they  could  for  it ;  in  the 
very  interim  the  Lord  God  fulfilled  his  promife, 
and  ftruck  our  enemies  in  the  face  with  a  con- 
trary wind,  wonderfully  to  our  refrefement :  then 
upon  our  parting  from  thefe  three  Ships,  we  were 
brought  to  afk  counfel  at  the  Lord,  and  the  word 
was  from  him,  Cut  through  and  fleer  your 
ftreighteft  courfe,  and  minde  nothing  but  me, 
unto  which  thing  he  much  provoked  us,  and  caufed 
us  to  meet  together  every  day,  and  he  himfelf  met 
with  us,  and  manifejled  himfelf  largely  ttnto  us,fo 
that  by  ftorms  we  were  not  prevented  above  three 
times  in  all  our  Voyage  ;  The  Sea  was  my  figure, 
for  if  any  thing  got  up  within,  the  Sea  without 
rafe  up  againft  me,  and  then  the  Floods  clapt  their 
hands,  of  which  in  time  I  took  notice,  and  told 
H.  N.  Again  in  a  vijion  in  the  night  If  aw  fame 
Anchors  fwimming  above  the  water,  and  fome- 
thing  alfo  of  a  Ship  which  croft  our  way,  which 
in  our  meeting  I  f aw  fulfilled,  for  I  my  f elf  with 
others,  had  loft  ours,fo  that  for  a  little  feaf on  the 
•veffel  ran  loofe  in  a  manner ;  which  afterwards 
by  the  wifdom  of  God  was  recovered  into  a  better 


APPENDIX  183 

condition  than  before :  Alfo  upon  the  twenty-fifth 
day  of  the  fame  Moneth  in  the  morning,  we  faw 
another  great  Vejfel  making  up  towards  MS,  which 
did  appear  far  off  to  have  been  a  Frigot,  and 
made  her  Jign  for  us  to  come  to  them,  which  unto 
me  was  a  great  crofs,  we  being  to  windward  of 
them ;  and  it  was  faid,  Go  fpeak  him,  the  crofs 
is  fure,  did  I  ever  fail  thee  therein  ?  and  unto 
others  there  appeared  no  danger  in  it,  fo  that  we 
did,  and  it  proved  a  Tradesman  of  London,  by 
whom  we  writ  back  :  Alfo  it  is  very  remarkable, 
when  we  had  been  five  weeks  at  Sea  in  a  darkfea- 
fon,  wherein  the  powers  of  darknefs  appeared  in 
the  greatejl  ftrength  again/I  us,  having  fay  led  but 
about  JOO  leagues  H.  N.  falling  into  communion 
with  God,  told  me  that  he  had  received  a  comfort- 
able  Anfwer,  and  alfo  that  about  fuch  a  day  we 
Jhouldlandin  America  which  was  even  fo  fulfilled; 
Alfo  thus  it  was  all  the  Voyage  with  thefaithfult 
which  were  carried  far  above  Jlorms  and  tern- 
pefts,  that  when  the  Ship  went  either  to  the  right 
or  left  hand,  their  lines  joy  ned  all  as  one,  and  did 
direct  our  way,  fo  that  we  havefeen  and  faid,  we 
fee  the  Lord  lead  our  Veffel,  even  as  it  were  a 
man  leading  a  horfe  by  the  head,  we  regarding 
neither  latitude  nor  longitude,  but  kept  to  our 
Line,  which  was,  and  is  our  Leader,  Guide  and 
Rtile,  but  they  that  did,  failed.  Upon  the  lajl  day 
of  the  fifth  Moneth  we  made  land,  it  was  a  part 
of  the  Long  Island  far  contrary  to  the  expecta- 
tion of  the  Pylot ;  Furthermore  our  drawing  had 
been  all  the  Voyage  to  keep  to  the  Southwards, 


1 84  APPENDIX 

until  the  evening  before  we  made  land,  and  then 
the  word  was,  There  is  a  Lion  in  the  way,  unto 
which  Lion  we  gave  obedience,  and f aid,  Let  them 
fteer  Northwards  until  the  day  following,  and 
foon  after  the  middle  of  the  day,  there  was  draw- 
ings to  meet  together  before  our  ufual  time,  and  it 
wasfaid,  That  we  may  look  abroad  in  the  evening, 
and  as  we  fate  waiting  upon  the  Lord,  they  dis- 
covered the  land,  and  our  mouthes  was  opened  in 
Prayer  and  Thanksgiving  ;  as  way  was  made,  we 
made  towards  it,  and  espying  a  Creek,  our  advice 
was  to  enter  there,  but  the  will  of  man  rejifled, 
but  in  that  eftate  we  had  learned  to  be  content,  and 
told  him  both  fides  was  fafe,  but  going  that  way 
would  be  more  trouble  to  him  ;  also  hefaw,  after 
he  had  laid  by  all  the  night,  the  thing  fulfilled. 

Now  to  lay  before  you  injhort,  the  largenefs  of 
the  Wifdom,  Will  and  Power  of  God,  Thus  this 
Creek  led  us  in  between  the  Dutch  Plantations 
and  Long  Island,  where  the  moving  of  fome 
friends  whereunto,  which  otherwife  had  been  very 
difficult  for  them  to  have  gotten  too :  Alfo  the 
Lord  God  that  moved  them,  brought  them,  to  a 
place  appointed,  and  us  into  our  way,  according  to 
the  word  which  came  to  C.  H.  You  are  in  the 
road  to  Road  Island.  In  that  Creek  came  a  Shal- 
lop to  meet  us,  taking  us  to  be  Jlrangers,  making 
our  way  with  our  Boat,  and  they  fpoke  Englijh 
unto  us,  and  informed  us,  and  alfo  guided  us 
along :  The  power  of  the  Lord  fell  much  upon  us, 
and  an  unrejlable  word  came  unto  us,  That  the 
Seed  in  America  lhall  be  as  the  fand  of  the  fea. 


APPENDIX  185 

It  was  publifhed  in  the  ears  of  the  Brethren, 
•which  caufed  tears  to  break  forth  with  fulnefs  of 
joy,fo  that  prefently  for  thefe  places  they  prepared 
themfelves,  which  were  Robert  Hoggen,  Richard 
Dowdney,  Sarah  Gibbins,  Mary  Witherhead,  and 
Dorothy  Waugh,  which  the  next  day  weputfafely 
ajhore :  Into  the  Dutch  Plantation  called  New 
Amsterdam,  we  came  and  it  being  the  firft  day  of 
the  week,feveral  came  aboard  on  us,  and  we  began 
our  work:  I  was  caufed  to  go  to  the  Governor, 
and  Robert  Hoggen  with  me ;  he  was  moderate 
both  in  words  and  actions.  Robert  and  I  had 
feveral  days  before  feen  in  a  vijion  the  Vejfel  in 
great  danger;  the  day  following  this  was  ful- 
filled, there  being  a  pajfage  between  two  Lands, 
which  is  called  by  the  name  of  Hell-gate,  we  hap- 
pened very  conveniently  of  a  Pylot,  and  into  that 
place  we  came,  and  into  it  were  forced,  and  over 
it  was  carried,  which  I  never  heard  of  any  before 
that  was ;  and  the  Scripture  is  fulfilled  in  our 
eyes,  in  the  Figure,  Hells  gates  cannot  prevail 
again/I  you :  rocks  many  on  both  fides,  fo  that  I 
believe  one  yards  length,  would  have  endangered 
lofs  of  both  Vejfel  and  Goods  ;  Alfo  there  were  a 
fcull  offijhes  purfued  our  Vejfel,  and  followed  her 
Jlrongly,  and  along  clofe  by  our  Rudder ;  and  in 
our  meeting  it  was  Jhewed  me,  Thefe  fijhes  is  to 
thee  a  Figure,  Thus  doth  the  Prayers  of  the 
Churches  proceed  to  the  Lord  for  thee  and  the 
reft:  purely  in  our  Meeting  did  the  thing  run 
through  me  as  oyl,  and  did  me  much  rejoice. 

FINIS 

Copied  in  the  British  Museum,  July  j,  1897,  by  C.  H. 


1 86  APPENDIX 

RICHARD  SMITH'S  TESTIMONY  AGAINST  SLAVERY. 

I  Richard  Smith  of  Groton  in  the  County  of 
New  London  and  Colony  of  Connecticut  upon 
Coniideration  and  Knowing  it  Required  of  me 
I  have  written  this  in  Order  to  Show  the  reafon 
and  make  it  manifeft  to  mankind  why  that  I 
Discharge  &  Sett  free  my  Negro  Girl  named 
Jane  at  Eighteen  Years  of  Age  Daughter  of 
Sarah  which  is  now  in  Slavery  with  her  other 
Children  Among  the  kein  of  Stephen  Gardner 
of  Norwich  Deceafed  their  Girl  Jane  was  Given 
to  my  Wife  Abigail  by  her  Father  Stephen 
Gardner  by  will  in  Order  to  be  a  Slave  all  her 
Days  According  to  the  Common  Cuftom  of 
Slavery.  But  She  falling  into  my  hand  by  my 
Wife  and  the  Lord  by  his  free  Goodnefs  having 
Given  me  a  clear  Sight  of  the  Cruelty  of  making 
a  Slave  of  one  that  was  by  Nature  as  Free  as  my 
Own  Children  and  no  ways  by  any  Evil  She  had 
Committed  brought  herfelf  into  Bondage  and 
Slavery  and  therefore  can  no  ways  be  Gilty 
of  Slavery,  and  to  argue  becaufe  her  Mother 
was  made  a  Slave  being  by  force  and  Violence 
brought  Out  of  her  Own  Land  againfb  her  mind 
and  will  and  Deprived  of  What  She  had  there  & 
made  a  Slave  of  her  Should  be  a  Sufficient  Rea- 
fon that  her  pofterity  Should  be  Opreft  in  bond- 
age with  Slavery.  I  fee  no  Juftice  for  it  nor 
Mercy  in  fo  Doing  but  Violent  Opprefsing  the 
Inocent  without  Caufe  For  this  thing  of  Ser- 
vants it  hath  pleafed  God  to  fett  before  us  in  a 


APPENDIX  187 

Clear  manner  the  cafe  of  Servants  and  Espe- 
cially the  Unreafonablenefs  of  thefe  matters 
and  miftreffes  who  profefs  to  be  the  followers 
of  Chrift  how  they  will  buy  &  fell  and  be  per- 
takers  in  making  Marchandize  in  Great  Babylon 
of  the  Slaves  that  is  the  bodys  of  men  and 
women  and  of  thefe  Strangers  as  Indians  &  Ne- 
grows  that  are  taken  Out  of  there  Own  Country 
or  taken  in  War  one  among  a  nother  and  Sent 
out  which  when  brought  here  in  Sed  of  being 
Relieved  are  Sold  into  Slavery  all  there  Days 
and  there  pofterity  after  them  they  being  never 
fo  Innofent  in  Ronging  of  any  and  thefe  mas- 
ters and  miftreffes  that  buy  them  or  Other  ways 
by  their  parents  have  them,  all  this  while  pro- 
fefs them-f elves  to  be  the  followers  of  Chrift 
or  Chriftians  and  yet  how  they  will  plead  the 
Reafonablenefs  of  Keeping  them  in  Slavery  and 
their  pofterity  after  them.  But  when  they  have 
pleaded  all  they  can  and  ufed  the  beft  Argu- 
ments they  have,  it  is  only  to  have  there  work 
done  with  eafe  &  they  to  be  great  and  to  be 
Lord  Over  there  fellow  Creatures,  Becaufe  they 
have  power  &  Authority  to  Opprefs  the  helplefs 
by  a  Cuftomary  Law  of  the  Nations  to  keep 
them  in  Bondage  under  Slavery,  Quite  Renoun- 
cing and  rejecting  and  Hating  to  Obey  the  Law 
&  command  of  there  great  Lord  and  Mafter 
Chrift  as  they  call  him  who  charge  them  faying 
Therefore  all  things  whatfoever  ye  would  that 
man  fhould  do  to  you  do  ye  even  fo  to  them  for 
this  is  the  Law  and  the  prophets  faid  Our  Great 


1 88  APPENDIX 

Lord  Matt.  7  &  12  Now  if  it  ftiould  be  afked 
of  any  of  thefe  Matters  or  Miftreffes  if  they  in 
like  Manner  with  there  Childeren  mould  be  car- 
ried away  unto  any  Strange  People  in  the  world 
and  be  Sold  into  Slavery  whether  they  would  be 
willing  to  Serve  a  ftrange  Nation  in  Slavery  & 
their  Children  after  them  and  be  Deprived  of 
what  they  Injoyed  in  there  Own  Country  (for  this 
is  the  Cafe)  I  Suppofe  there  Answer  would  [be] 
no  nor  any  of  Our  Children  upon  any  acct.  No 
not  if  they  were  in  a  Chriftian  Land  as  they  call 
this  Well  then  how  can  any  of  them  plead  the 
Reafonableness  of  Keeping  of  any  of  them  in 
Slavery  with  there  pofterity  and  not  to  fet  them 
free  in  a  Reafonable  Time  as  they  themfelves 
with  their  Children  would  be  willing  to  be  done 
by  According  to  Chrifts  words  above  mentioned 
for  by  Nature  all  Nations  are  free  One  from  the 
Other  and  the  apoftle  Saith  God  is  no  Refpecter 
of  perfons,  the  Apoftle  Likewife  Saith  that  God 
hath  made  of  One  Blood  all  Nations  of  men  to 
Dwell  on  all  the  face  of  the  Earth  Acts  17  &  26 
So  that  by  Nature  &  Blood  we  are  no  better  in 
Gods  Sight  than  they  and  it  is  plain  that  Chrift 
taught  a  Doctrine  that  was  to  releive  the  Op- 
prefled  and  to  Unbind  heavy  Burdens  and  let  the 
Innofent  *prif oners  go  free,  and  hath  Commanded 
us  to  love  Our  Enemys,  and  to  entertain  Stran- 
gers, &  not  to  Opprefs  them  in  Bondage  with 
Slavery  and  Said,  he  came  not  to  Deftroy  Mens 
Lives  but  to  fave  them  Luke  9  &  56  So  that  the 
way  that  brings  them  into  Slavery  is  forbidden 


APPENDIX  189 

by  Chrift  for  by  war  Violence  &  Stealth  and 
tradeing  in  them  is  the  way  by  which  they  are 
firft  Ordered  to  go  into  Slavery,  and  they  that 
buy  them  or  otherways  have  them  and  keep 
them  in  Slavery  as  they  do  there  Beafts  for  to  do 
there  Labour  &  not  to  releive  them  and  fet  them 
free,  are  pertakers  of  the  Same  evil,  Therefore 
I  Leave  this  as  a  faithfull  Teftimony  in  the  fear 
of  the  liveing  God  againft  all  such  wicked  pro- 
ceedings, and  upon  true  Confideration  of  what  is 
written  I  hereby  Declare  that  now  at  this  Time 
that  my  Negrow  Girl  Jane  hath  arrived  to  Eigh- 
teen Years  of  Age  that  me  Shall  now  go  out 
Free  from  Bondage  and  Slavery  as  free  as  if  me 
had  been  free  born  and  that  my  Heirs,  Execu- 
tors or  Adminiftrators  mail  have  no  power  Over 
her  to  make  a  Slave  of  Her  or  her  pofterity  no 
more  than  if  She  had  been  free  born,  for  I  freely 
give  her  her  freedom  now  at  the  arrival  of  the 
aforefd  age  which  is  now  full  filled  in  this  pre- 
fent  Year  1757  as  witnefs  my  hand 

(Signed)  RICHARD  SMITH. 


190 


APPENDIX 


LIST  OF  PERSONS 

OWNING   SLAVES,    NAMES   OF 

SLAVES   AND 

DATE   WHEN    SET   FREE 

Name  of  slave 

Owned  by 

Date  of  emancipation 

Jane 

Richard  Smith 

1757 

Pegg 

Stephen  Richmond 

2;th  1  2th  mo 

1773 

Phillis  and  her  two  children 
Casper  and  Judith 

John  Knowles 

ist  nth  mo 

1773 

Richard 

Jeremiah  Browning 

2  ;th  gth  mo 

1773 

Israel 

William  Robinson 

I5th  ist  mo 

1780 

Dick 

John  Congdon 

29th  1  2th  mo 

1783 

Luce  \ 

Jack  1 

William  Congdon 

2gth  3d  mo 

1784 

Fan   ) 

Barshebe  Knowles 

24th  7th  mo 

1783 

Robert  Knowles 

Cuff,  otherwise  Cuff 

Joseph  Knowles 

Knowles 

John  Congdon 

Charles  Congdon 

Hannah  Knowles 

Job 

William  Peckham 

4th  8th  mo 

1786 

Rose 

William  Peckham 

24th  8th  mo 

1786 

PETER  DAVIS     OLD   AGE 

We  the  Committee  appointed  to  provide  for 
the  Support  of  Peter  Davis  and  wife  have  met 
on  fd  Businefs  and  propofe  the  following  agree- 
ment made  with  Peter  Hoxfie  for  one  years 
fupport  of  fd  Peter  Davis  and  wife  that  He  will 
keep  Martha  Davis  for  the  confideration  of  her 
Anuity  or  income  free  &  clear  from  any  expence 
to  friends,  and  that  he  will  keep  and  support 
Peter  Davis  includeing  victualling,  clotheing, 
Doctrineing,  lodgeing  &c  for  the  fd  term  of  one 
year,  for  the  confideration  of  fifty  dollars,  twenty 
Seven  of  which  is  due  to  the  fd  Peter  Davis  from 
Wm  Sweet  Peckham,  which  he  agrees  to  Collect 


APPENDIX  IQI 

of  him,  which  will  leave  twenty  three  Dollars  for 
the  Monthly  meeting  to  pay,  —  Or  in  that  Pro- 
portion if  the  fd  Peter  should  deceafe  before  the 
expiration  of  that  time.  And  the  fd  Peter  Hoxfie 
agrees  that  they  mail  be  as  well  clothed  at  the 
years  end  as  they  are  when  he  receives  them  — 
his  year  is  to  commence  the  8th  day  of  the  7th  Mo. 
1808. 

All  which  we  fubmit  to  the  Mo.  Meeting. 
PETER  HOXSIE 
JOHN  CONGDON 
JEREMIAH  BROWNING,  JR. 
JOSEPH  COLLINS,  JR. 
Hopkinton  the  ioth  of  7th  Mo. 
A.  D.  1808. 


INDEX 


INDEX 


ADVICE  to  debtors,  109. 
Albro,  Samuel,  161. 
Allen,  Matthew,  112. 
Aquidneck,  5. 
Arnold,  Benedict,  7. 
Atherton,  Humphrey,  51 ;  death 

of,  52. 
Austin,  Anne,  10. 

Barber,  John,  104. 
Books  subscribed  for,  174. 
Bounds  of  meeting,  65. 
Braddock,  General,  168. 
Bradstreet,  Simon,  5-51. 
Brand,  William,  15. 
Brayton,  Preserved,  121. 
Briggs,  John,  54. 
British  garrison,  170. 
Bull,  Jireh,  48. 
Burnyeate,  John,  49. 

Cartwright,  John,  49. 
Clark,  Mary,  13. 
Collins,  Hezekiah,  124. 
Collins,  John,  87. 
Congdon,  Joseph,  59. 
Congdon,  Samuel,  167. 
Commissioners  of  the  United 

Colonies,  3. 
Copeland,  John,  13. 
Corn,  price  of,  163. 
Creditors,  108. 


Dancing,  130. 

Davis,  Content,  99. 

Davis,  Nicholas,  25. 

Davis,  Peter,  63;  his  travels, 

78;  his  old  age,  81. 
Deceased  wife's  sister,  90. 
Debts  and  debtors,  105. 
Diman,  Professor  J.  L.,  5. 
Dyer,  Mary,  24 ;  sentenced,  26; 

letter  to  the  court,  27 ;  on 

the  gallows,  29;  reprieved, 

30 ;  executed,  35. 

Easton,  Nicholas,  6. 
Endicott,  John,  9,  26. 
Epistles,  London,  156. 

Fayerweather,  Rev.  Mr.,  96. 

Fisher,  Mary,  10 ;  in  Turkey,  14. 

Fothergill,  Samuel,  161. 

Fowler,  Robert,  10. 

Fox,  George,  12;  meetings  in 
Newport,  46;  in  Narragan- 
sett,  48;  established  wo- 
men's meeting,  117. 

Friends  denied,  169. 

Friends'  judgment  in  contro- 
versies, 103. 

Friends'  meeting  accounts,  73. 

Friends'  spiritual  service,  172. 

Friends'  sufferings  in  Eng- 
land, 72. 


196 


INDEX 


George  III.,  proclaimed,  162. 
Gibbons,  Sarah,  15. 
Gorton,  Samuel,  6. 
Greene,  David,  139. 
Greene,  Nathaniel,  175. 
Greene,     Patience,     120;    her 

travels,  122-23. 
Greene,  Peter,  54. 

Hazard,  Elizabeth,  124. 
Hazard,  Robert,  86. 
Hazard,  Sarah,  148. 
Hazard,  "Nailor  Tom,"  160; 

diary,  165. 
Hazard,   Thomas,   59;    serves 

as  clerk,  85 ;  frees  his  slaves, 

86;  preaching,  161. 
Holder,  Christopher,  13. 
Horse-racing,  170. 
Hoxsie,  John,  127. 
Hoxsie,    Solomon,  87 ;  makes 

complaint,  102;  marriage  of 

niece,  127. 

Hoxsie,  Stephen,  82. 
Hutchinson,  Mrs.  Anne,  5. 

Inflated  currency,  67. 
Irish,  Job,  110-112. 

Kirby,  Mary,  123. 
King's  Province,  50. 
Knowles,  John,  102. 
Knowles,    Robert,    87;    visits 
Boston,  ii2. 

Laws  against  Quakers,  18. 
Little  Rest,  62. 
Liquor  license,  101. 
Longfellow,  17. 

Marriages,  128. 
Marriage  in  a  shift,  133. 


Marrying  out  of  unity,  132. 
McSparran,  Dr.,  95. 
Meeting-house  in    Greenwich, 

53- 

Ministerial  lands,  95. 
Mulkins,  Henry,  97. 
Murray,  Lindley,  123. 

New  Lights,  97-100. 
Nichols,  Andrew,  121. 
Niles,  Rev.  Samuel,  95. 
Norton,  John,  15. 

Old  meeting-house,  62. 
Overseers,  91. 

Paper  money  for  war  purposes, 

163. 

Peace  Dale,  147. 
Peckham,  Peleg,  84. 
Pemberton,  John,  141. 
Perry,  Alice,  128. 
Perry,  Anna,  118,  125. 
Perry,   James,   gives  land  for 

meeting-house,  68. 
Perry,  Jonathan,  130. 
Perry,  Samuel,  130. 

Quakers,  acts  of  law  against, 

18. 

Quakers,  travelling,  23. 
Queries,  88-90. 
Query,  the  tenth,  146. 

Ranters,  4. 

Rathbun,   Joshua,    144;    sells 

his  slave,  146;  denied,  147; 

restored  to  membership,  150; 

death,  153. 

Rathbun,  Joshua,  Jr.,  153. 
Rawson,  Edward,  22. 
Records  of  meeting,  77. 


INDEX 


197 


Regulars  at  Point  Judith,  166. 
Rhode  Island,  the  "  back  door," 

22. 

Richmond  meeting-house,  69. 
Robinson,  Mrs.  C.  E.,  160. 
Robinson,  Hannah,  124. 
Robinson,  Rowland,  54. 
Robinson,  Sylvester,  129. 
Robinson,  William,  24,  126. 
Rodman,  Benjamin,  153. 
Rodman,   Samuel,    denial    of, 

144. 
Rodman,  Thomas,  54. 

Separators,  97. 

Sewall,   Samuel,  51 ;   entry  in 

diary,  62. 

Sewel,  historian,  16. 
Slave  legislation,  140. 
Slaves  in    South    Kingstown, 

!39- 

Slaves  in  the  women's  meet- 
ing, 148. 

Slocum,  Ebenezer,  62. 

Smith,  Elizabeth,  123. 

Smith,  Richard,  frees  slave, 
141. 

Temperance,  170. 
Testimony  against  war,  168. 
Torrey,  Dr.,  96. 


Tower  Hill,  49 ;  letting  money 

at,  162. 

Tucker,  Nathan,  103. 
Thurston,  Gardner,  161. 

Upsal,  Nicholas,  1 1 ;  banished, 

21. 
Usquepaug,  70. 

Watson,  Jeffrey,  159 ;  accounts, 
163. 

Watson,  Job,  166. 

Watson,  John,  160. 

Washington,  George,  167. 

Waugh,  Dorothy,  15. 

Westerly  meeting-house,  66. 

Whittier,  "A  Spiritual  Mani- 
festation," 43. 

Widders,  Robert,  45. 

Wilbour,  Thomas,  89. 

Wilkinson,  Jemima,  171. 

Williams,  Roger,  8;  charter 
procured  by,  41  ;  goes  to 
Newport,  47. 

Winthrop,  Governor,  6. 

Woman's  meeting  records, 
118. 

Woodhouse,  voyage  of,  12. 

Woolman,  John,  140. 

Youths'  meetings,  73. 


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